


From the Ashes of 1943

by MonaLuisa



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1940s, All fandoms aside from Original Work are simply referenced., Angst, Arranged Marriage, Child Abuse Warning, Communism, F/M, Fascism, Fluff, Gen, Il Trovatore, In Flanders Fields, Is It a Sin to Love Thee?, Italian Resistance, Italy, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Nazism, New York, Period Typical Homophobia, Period Typical Transphobia, Romani/Sinti Peoples, Some triggering topics I don’t want to spoil. Read at your own risk., The Best Loved Poems of the American People, WIP, Work In Progress, World War II, historical fiction - Freeform, period typical racism, small town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 61
Words: 57,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23042923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonaLuisa/pseuds/MonaLuisa
Summary: A former opera singer, a philosopher, a student, a hopeless romantic, a stargazer, a writer, and a soldier cause a chain of events that rattle the small town of Cresto D'oro and change their own lives forever against the backdrop of the Italian surrender from World War II.
Kudos: 4





	1. Uno

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone’s actually reading this, feel free to tell me what I can improve upon. This is a work in progress, and I understand I am not a perfect writer. If there’s anything you think I could do better with, it would help me to know. I thank y’all in advance.
> 
> Edit: bruh I just realized I made my username using the name of a main character
> 
> Oh heck people are going to think Luisa’s a self insert...I am big dumb dumb

**Part One**

**May 1943**

At the beginning. there was the rising spring sun, there was the compact mirror, there was Valencia sleeping, and there was Luisa de Cicco, creeping into her mother’s room.

She knew she had to be careful; Her mother was a light sleeper, and she would wake at the slightest noise. As such, she slunk through the room and looked around, admiring a peach dress folded on the dresser. Also on that dresser was Valencia’s compact mirror, the target of Luisa’s heist.

The floorboard creaked as she walked along. Luisa held her breath, and luckily, Valencia just turned and continued to sleep.

She quickly grabbed the mirror and ran into her bedroom, hoping that the quick movement wouldn’t wake her mother. She opened the mirror and admired her fair face, imagining how it would look with rouge on, when she looked towards her chin and suddenly saw that she was growing facial hair.

This would’ve been an excitement to most others, a sign that she was becoming a man, a grown adult, and it would be accompanied by a pat on the back from her old man and a shaving lesson, but to Luisa, it was a dreadful sight, and it wasn’t because she wanted to stay clean-cut.

She was a girl.

She _had_ to be; she’d known it for as long as she could remember.

The only problem was that no one else knew. To the world, she was Roma de Cicco, the son of Valencia and Cosimo de Cicco, and she would have to live with that, to smile through all the times someone called her ‘him’ or ‘he’, no matter how much it hurt her.

She looked at that small, single black hair and felt sick.

The old clock in the hallway chimed, and Luisa listened for the number.

_I’m going to be late_! she thought, shoving the mirror into her pocket. She sprung up and dashed across her room for her saddlebag and ran through the town with it thumping along her side, only slowing her pace once she came to the bridge and saw the house where Marcello and his mother were staying. To Luisa’s surprise, he was already outside, and he was talking to Flavio.

“Good morning, Roma!” Marcello called.

Flavio playfully hit him on the arm. “What the hell are you greeting him for? We’re gonna be late if we don’t hurry!”

“Oh, calm down!” Luisa chuckled as they began to walk.

“I’m perfectly calm, just worried for Marcello’s sake!”

“Why me?” Marcello asked, laughing.

“Cause you’re a goody-two shoes, that’s why! You can’t be late! It’ll ruin your image.”

“First of all, I don’t have one, and second, when did you start caring?” 

“Yeah,” Luisa agreed. “Everyone keeps telling you to cut your hair, and if you cared about your ‘image’ at all, you’d have done it by now!”

“I like it like this!” Flavio defended, stopping to toss his short, wiry ponytail behind his back.

“Vincenzo told me once that you look like you’re about to drive the British out of America.”

“Marcello’s right! Just give him one of those tricorne hats and a rifle and he’ll be all set!”

“You shut your traps, won’t you? What the hell does Vincenzo know?” 

“Isn’t he learning English?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“Isn’t English one of the hardest languages to learn?”

Flavio rolled his eyes. “Do I look like an Englishman to you?”

“About as much as I look Italian,” Marcello replied sarcastically before sighing. “God, that doesn’t even prove my point. He’s pretty smart; that’s all I mean to say.”

“You gotta get your head out of those books...” Flavio muttered, shaking his head.

School was the same as always. All the students hated the teacher, Signor Poggi, and complained about him as soon as they were out of his earshot. Marcello was the only one who even tried to like him, if only out of desperation to be deemed a better person than most people thought he was.

The reason he had to do this was simple: He was a Sinti gypsy, and if he didn’t get used to having to prove himself worthy of being treated better than a dog, then he wouldn’t survive a day in the real world, much less a day in those troubled times.

Many of the kids that Flavio and Roma had grown up with had dropped out of school to help with farmwork, and the boys that remained were annoying at best and violent at worst. Luisa was too feminine to be liked by them, Marcello, as we’ve already established, was too dark and foreign, and Flavio was their outcast for choosing the other two as friends.

The girls, on the other hand, were considerably nicer, especially to Luisa, who they all thought handsome and friendly. Though generally, they kept their distance from the other two.

After school, the three of them left the building together and had not taken five steps out before being confronted by Paolo Costa and his gang, a few of the aforementioned boys who had stayed

“Nice job with the Odyssey paper, gypsy!”

Marcello sighed and spoke softly without turning to look at them. “Marcello is fine, and thank you.”

“We all saw you take it from Angelo, you know!”

“Well then, I guess you all know that he took it first!”

“You want to fight and settle it? The loser will be the thief, and we all know it’s in your blood to steal!”

“Leave him alone, goddamnit!” Flavio yelled. 

“Come on, he probably robbed half of Genoa blind! Good thing he left when he did!”

“You shut up before I make you!” Flavio began to stride towards the group, but Marcello grabbed his arm and pulled him away. 

“Stop it! It’ll be better for all of us if we leave before they start in on Roma!”

Luisa looked out at the trees just beyond the old schoolhouse and didn’t say anything. Paolo suddenly grabbed her shoulder, causing her to gasp. “Oh, how could I ever forget Miss de Cicco here!”

Luisa angrily shoved the hand off of her. “Fuck you.”

“Leave us alone!” Flavio yelled, shoving Paolo away from him and into the painted white wall of the schoolhouse. Everyone gasped and waited with bated breath for Paolo to say something. but he didn’t.

Instead, he smirked. 

“You’re looking for a fight, huh? Go ahead. Give me a nice fight, and make sure Marcello and Roma watch. It’ll be good for those nancyboys.”

“They’ll be fighting _with_ me, thank you very much.” Flavio turned to Luisa and Marcello for confirmation. “What do you say? You wanna help me fight these clowns?”

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Luisa said. “What about you, Marcello?”

“Why can’t we just go home already?”

“Because if you’re not going to defend yourself, I’m going to do it for you!” 

Marcello rolled his eyes and groaned.

Flavio turned back to Paolo and his friends, narrowing his brown eyes and resisting his urge to smirk at them. “It’s gonna be a fair fight, alright?”

“Fair fight?” Paolo chuckled. “It’s a good thing Marcello’s the wimp he is, or this fight would be about as fair as Circe turning the crew to pigs!” 

The boys laughed, and Paolo continued. “You know how gypsies are, Flavio, and you can deny it all you want, but at the end of the day, there’s a reason my father doesn’t allow those good-for-nothing bastards in his store, especially not ones like him!”

“That’s it!” Flavio yelled, throwing the first punch. Luisa followed suit, and Marcello sulked off back to Cresto D’oro.

For a good thirty minutes, utter hell broke loose outside the schoolhouse. In time, Flavio and Luisa were forced to retreat and caught up with Marcello, the smell of sweat still on them.

Marcello didn’t even have to look behind him to know what had happened. 

“You lost, didn’t you?”

“Barely,” Luisa lied, rubbing her sore cheek.

“I will never understand why you just let them talk to you like that to your face,” Flavio said softly.

Marcello suddenly stopped in the middle of the dirt road and turned, throwing his arms out. “What do you want me to do, huh? It’s better to be treated like shit than to bust your ass trying to get respect!” Marcello cursing was a rare occasion, and it shut everyone up for a bit. He continued. “I wonder sometimes if I should’ve stopped my parents from bringing us here. Sure, we were starving in Genoa, and maybe we were getting bombed every five minutes, but at least I wasn’t the odd one out! I’d rather be starving than the outcast.”

Flavio had no reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are qualified to answer this question: Is Luisa an accurate depiction of a closeted trans girl? I am cis, so I have no personal experience with dysphoria or anything. I want to be as accurate as I can.


	2. Due

After what felt like centuries without any talking, the three got back home.

Flavio set his saddlebag down in the main room of his house. “I’m home!” he called. His father didn’t look up from the paper, grunted, and gestured with his hand for him to leave. Flavio had accustomed himself to such an action long before then, and so, thinking nothing of it, he ran upstairs into his room, where he found his older brother. 

There was Vincenzo, sitting at the desk, leaning over two very thick books and a sheet of paper, studying, as always. In his left hand, he held a pen.

“What the hell are you doing?” Flavio asked.

Vincenzo looked over at him, pushing his brown hair from his face. “Learning more English nouns. How was school?”

“I fought Paolo again,” Flavio replied, laying down on the bed and staring at a bird through the window.

Vincenzo sighed, disappointed. “We don’t need another war to break out, you know.”

“I did it to protect Marcello!”

“What’s the point in that?

“I can’t stand seeing him do nothing about people looking down on him for no good reason, that’s all!”

“Better leave Europe, then.”

“I thought you were the one who wanted to do that…” Flavio muttered. “Where even was it that you wanted to go so bad? Washington?”

“First of all, it’s New York, and yes, I am going there once the war ends.” Vincenzo paused, chewed on his pen for a second, and laughed cynically. “That is, _if_ the war ends.” 

Flavio turned from the window and looked up at the ceiling. “Teach me some English curse words, so I can say them without getting in trouble!”

“I don’t know any English ones, but I _can_ give you German.”

Flavio sat up and looked at his brother. “Tell me everything.”

“I will. Tonight, when we’re getting ready, I’ll go over them. In the meantime, I need to concentrate.”

Flavio laid back down and rolled over on the bed, causing it to squeak.

Vincenzo grunted and turned to look at him. “ _Alone_.”

Now shooed by two separate family members, Flavio left the house and went up to the Bianchi farm, hoping to see Marcello up on the hill.

Sure enough, he was there, and Flavio began the trek to meet him and sit in the tree, looking over him. 

It was quiet on the farm; the only sounds were the rustling of the wind through the grain, the deep, distant humming of Natale Oliveri, and the chirping of the birds in the fig trees.

Signora Bianchi was a generous woman, but a pariah. As the illegitimate daughter of a Sinti woman and an Italian man, neither race wanted her, seeing that she was half of the other. Because of this lifelong loneliness, when Sebastiano Oliveri had begged her to house his brother and his family in exchange for help on the farm back in 1941, she had gladly agreed.

The fig and olive trees spread across the property, and yet, on the hill, there lived an old, twisted fig tree, separated from the rest. It belonged to nobody, and nobody really cared who took its fruit. It had been there as long as anyone could remember, and, despite its age, gave good fruit every year. 

This tree, affectionately called Nostra Signora by Flavio and Marcello, was Flavio’s favorite.

He climbed up the hill to find Marcello sitting under Nostra Signora, writing in his journal as always. He looked up at Flavio when he saw him coming, but did not speak.

“I’m sorry about the fight,” 

Marcello did not look up again and continued writing. “I don’t want to talk about that. But as long as you don’t, you’re free to stay here a while.”

Flavio nodded and climbed up into the lowest, thickest brand of the tree. He looked down at Marcello, and a warm feeling suddenly spread over him as the breeze caressed his face. “You have nice handwriting.”

Marcello looked up briefly with no expression on his face. “I really don’t.”

“Well, it’s better than mine, that’s for sure.” Flavio admitted, picking a fig from a nearby branch and tossing it in his mouth. He chewed it for a few seconds before he felt its bitterness on his tongue, and he immediately spat the fruit out and threw it away from him.

Marcello stifled a laugh. “You picked it too early. They won’t be ripe until June.” Here, he could no longer hide his smile. “How is it that you’ve lived in this town your whole life, and some city-boy knows more about figs than you do?” He sighed and changed the topic. “I don’t know why you even go up there in the first place.”

“It’s nice up here.”

“Yeah, but what if you fall? It’s so old!”

“I’m not that high up.”

“You could still get hurt, though. I’m amazed it hasn’t happened already!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Flavio looked down at Marcello once again. “What are you writing?”

“It’s nothing.”

“No, really. I want to know!”

Marcello sighed and looked up at Flavio. “Alright. It’s a story.”

“What about?”

“It’s about a boy whose best friend went missing out of nowhere, to give you the short version.”

“What’s the long version?”

“I’m not quite sure yet. I think I’m going to kill off Matteo, though. Really make the main character reevaluate his choices.”

Flavio lit a cigarette he had stolen from Vincenzo and nodded, looking off into the horizon. “Sounds cool.”

“It could be, except I can’t write dialogue for the life of me.”

“Can I read it?”

“What?” Marcello asked alarmed, suddenly looking up.

Flavio looked at him and took a drag on the cigarette. “I asked if I could read the story.”

“No, no, it would be too hard. The chapters are all written in between my journal entries.”

“Guess I’ll have to wait until you publish it, then.”

Marcello laughed. Flavio smiled; he liked the light, warm sound of it, and so he continued. “You know, I could see you becoming famous.”

Marcello laughed louder, then shook his head. “Me? _Famous_? Now you’re just trying to flatter me! Thank you, though; It’s nice to know someone appreciates my work.”

“No problem.” Flavio said earnestly, looking down at the town.

There was the bakery he would always try to steal from, the market stands, houses, the tavern, the fountain in the square, the church in the middle of it all, and the forest west of that. 

It was Cresto D’oro, the town he’d known all his life, the one he’d stay in forever.

It’s amazing how much changed in that one year.


	3. Tre

**Part Two**

**September 1943**

The summer of 1943 was nothing too out of the ordinary, which is why I won’t mention it. The figs ripened, just as Marcello had known they would. Flavio sat in the tree and ate them, and from time to time, Luisa would join her friends on the hill, even though she was never particularly fond of it.

The events that are of any concern to us began on a Wednesday evening in early September. It had started as a normal day, but in the span of a few hours, everyone had heard different rumors concerning the war, the Americans, and Mussolini.

They were going to surrender. No, Germany surrendered. No, the Germans took England through Cornwall. No, Japan had already surrendered. No, the Americans were going to do a mass bombing from the south up. No, both sides reached a peace treaty. 

It was all anyone talked about in school, to Signor Poggi’s dismay, and it was all the women talked about at the fountain. So, that evening, 85% of that little town crowded around the radio in the local tavern, La Rosa Grigia, and waited with bated breath for the evening news.

There were, in Cresto D’oro, several more-affluent people who had radios in their own homes, such as the de Ciccos, but then again, whatever news there was to be heard was better heard in a crowded tavern.

“If we were going to surrender, we would’ve done it by now!” yelled a voice that was promptly shushed by everyone else.

The radio droned on.

“...and on the third reached an armistice which both King Victor Emmanuel and Pietro Badoglio approved.”

At these words, some gasped, some cried out, some breathed silent sighs of relief, and some forfeited money to their neighbors behind their backs.

Marcello, Luisa, and Flavio sat in a booth, talking.

“But what does that mean?”

“It means we surrendered, Roma!” Marcello explained.

“You think the war will finally end?” asked Flavio.

“I don’t know about that, but it’s certainly a step towards it.”

Luisa was relieved at this little glimmer of hope. “Once the war’s over, the first thing I’m doing is finding some chocolate. Then, I’m going to turn all the lights on in my house with all the curtains open.”

“You going back to Genoa, Marcello?”

Marcello sighed. “I don’t know. If the war ended today, we’d probably stay for a while and help out Signora Bianchi with the harvest. Anyways, Roma, of course you care about things like that, no offense to you. When the war ends, I’m going to go right down to the bakery and buy myself a _real_ loaf of bread, not whatever it is they’re giving us now.” Marcello paused, scanning around the room before turning back to Roma. “What do you think your father thinks about the war? Is he happy we’re surrendering?”

“Oh, I’m sure he is. I mean, look at the guy! Sebastiano’s gonna die if he keeps shaking him!”

“Believe me, he’s been through worse,” Marcello said.

Somebody started playing some vague version of the national anthem on piano, singing as loudly as possible. They didn’t care how they sounded, and it showed.

“Goddamnit, someone let Vincenzo on the piano.”

“What does he think about the war?” Marcello asked.

“You think I know?”

Marcello was surprised. “You ought to! He’s your brother! Your own flesh and blood! He must have told you at _some_ point!”

“Well, he hasn’t!”

The piano music stopped, and Vincenzo came to their table and sat down. “You were saying?”

“Nobody asked, now scram!”

“It’s alright; he can stay,” Marcello began. “Flavio wants to know how you feel about the war.”

“No, I don’t!”

“The war?” Vincenzo repeated before lowering his voice. “Truth is, I don’t care much for Fascism. I don’t even care for Italy, if we’re being honest.”

“I know, dammit! You tell me every three seconds!”

“I thought you said that you two don’t talk about the war,” Luisa interrupted.

Marcello groaned, frustrated. “Flavio, let him talk. Vincenzo, I think it’s very bold of you to admit that in public.”

“Ah, no one can hear.”

“Then how the hell did you hear us talking about you, piano-man?”

Nobody responded to Flavio, and Marcello continued to speak. “Do you think you could do me a favor?” 

“I guess.”

“Could you _please_ go over there and tell Signor de Cicco to stop shaking my Uncle Sebastiano?”

“He’s stopping, don’t worry. Look, here he comes now.”

“Oh great,” Flavio muttered sarcastically. “Another person coming to the table. He’s not going to fit, you know.”

Cosimo de Cicco came to the table and stood in front of the four, his large body blocking a portion of their views of the tavern. “My boys, the war is over!”

“I had no idea…” Luisa muttered sarcastically, feeling that Cosimo would not have addressed the three in such a manner if he had not caught her trying on her mother’s pearl necklace the week before.

“Oh, quit fooling, Roma! Do you know how great this is?”

“Sure I do!” 

The tavern went silent for a moment after a glass shattered, and red wine spilled on someone’s shirt. 

“Mamma would hate this.” Luisa laughed as the sound still ringing in her ears.

Cosimo nodded. “She would, she would. But I’m sure she’ll want to hear about this! Roma, I’m going home. Vincenzo, keep him and the rest out of trouble, won’t you?”

“I can’t make any promises, not with Flavio here.”

“Just do your best!” Cosimo chuckled, before quickly getting up from the table and leaving.


	4. Quattro

Cosimo called out to Valencia as soon as he got home, and he found her sitting in the living room and listening to the radio, like she did every evening.

Valencia was a particular woman, quiet. Half the time someone would say something to her, she’d be looking the other way, still listening, of course, but always finding better things to think about. 

This general aloofness and her tendency to ramble on about nothing in particular led the townspeople to try and make their experience with her limited and brief.

It drew Cosimo closer to her; he appreciated that the two of them could hold a light conversation for hours if they wanted to and not get bored.

That day, however, there were more important things to talk about than pears or music theory.

“Valencia! You’ll never believe it!”

She barely looked at her husband. “What is it?”

“We’ve surrendered to the allies!”

“Have we?”

“Yes! Isn’t it wonderful?” Cosimo asked, sitting down on the sofa next to her.

“I suppose it is! How are things going for Mussolini?”

Cosimo sighed. “Well, you and I both know that he’ll be around longer than we’d like. In fact, the surrender itself might not be as good of a thing as we’d hoped; I don’t imagine the Germans are going to let us quit so easily. You see, Valencia, what we need is a revolution, something like the American or Russian one…” 

Valencia listened intently as her husband talked of the pitfalls of absolute power, the rise of the people, the executions of the Bourbons and the Romanovs, the idea of trying socialism in Italy, and the likes.

She loved Cosimo dearly; she always had. What a happy life they had made for themselves, she thought, staring into his eyes.

That Sunday, Cosimo invited Vincenzo to have dinner with him and his family and discuss the surrender. He agreed, and arrived that evening, swiftly and quietly walking through the doorway, taking note of the familiarity of the house.

Luisa uttered a greeting to him from the living room, always having found it somewhat strange that her friend’s brother and her father were such good friends. 

Vincenzo returned her small greeting, then began talking to Cosimo.

“There’s never been a better time to be a southerner,” he announced.

Cosimo laughed. “You’ve hardly got a drop of southern blood in you! And even with that bit from your father, you and your brother have been raised entirely northern. Truth be told, I think Sergio would like to forget he’s a southerner in the first place!”

“I think you might be right. You know, he never liked how friendly they were, and it shows. He was really lighting into Flavio today…” Vincenzo shook his head. anyways, it’s a damn good thing the southerners are friendly, and it’s a damn good thing so many left all those years ago!”

“You’d do the same if you saw an American soldier; practicing your English, asking about the weather…”

“You make me sound so immature,” Vincenzo said, shaking his head.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’re still young. Back in my day, you would still be a young boy. Kids these days, they like to think they’re grown.” Cosimo said this obviously looking in Luisa’s direction, and she rolled her eyes at it and left to the kitchen to avoid the guest and her father.

“Is Vincenzo here yet?” Valencia asked, turning briefly as Luisa walked in, then returning to her work.

She was still mad at her father for embarrassing her, and it showed in her tone. “What do you think?”

“Roma Valentino!” Valencia scolded, sending Luisa the type of glare only a mother could.

Again, Luisa rolled her eyes and sighed. “Sorry. He’s in the living room.”

“And you’ve greeted him?”

“Yes, Mamma!”

“Go back and tell him I say hello, and that dinner will be ready soon.”

“Do I have to?”

“He’s our guest! Of course you do!”

For the fear of having them get permanently stuck, Luisa did not roll her eyes and trudged back to the living room, where she found Vincenzo talking in whispers.

“But that’s the problem! We live at just about the ass of the world, and the CLN is all operating out of the cities. How are we going to get supplies?”

Cosimo, who had been against the idea of talking about the subject with everyone home in the first place, saw Luisa and stepped on Vincenzo’s foot hard. “Back again, Roma?” he asked loudly.

“Um...yeah. My mom says hi, Vincenzo. Dinner will be ready soon.”

“Wonderful,” he grunted, kicking Cosimo’s leg. He stood still, waiting for Luisa to leave so that he could continue his conversation with Cosimo, but Luisa sensed that something was off, and in an action Vincenzo interpreted as pure spite, she sat down at the piano, facing the two.

“Why don’t you play something?” Cosimo asked.

“No, it’s alright. I think I’ll just...join the conversation.” She almost smiled to herself as she watched her father stand awkwardly, as she watched Vincenzo’s face redden. “What’s the CLN?”

“It’s a football team at St. Veronica,” Vincenzo said sarcastically.

“Well then, why is the football team sending you supplies?”

“Roma, go back to the kitchen and help your mother. This conversation has nothing to do with you.”

“But Papà!”

“Go to the kitchen,” Cosimo said sternly. Luisa grunted and returned, sarcastically wondering if the two had joined the mafia. There were no further suspicious instances for the rest of the night.


	5. Cinque

A week passed, and Luisa, Flavio, and Marcello went to see a movie in the city. Vincenzo was supposed to pick them up and take them to the train station, as Valencia didn’t like the idea of her child alone in the city.

An hour had passed since the end of the movie, and he still hadn’t come. At this point, Marcello went off on his own back to the station to catch the next train back, assuring that Valencia was overprotective of Luisa, that he had lived in Genoa long enough to get on a train by himself, and that he didn’t mind walking home from the station in Lontano Collina alone.

Flavio sat on the steps of a church and continued to wait with Luisa.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “What do you think happened to him?”

“Do you think he got lost?”

“Nah, you know the astronomer he is. He’d use the stars to find his way, or some shit like that. How long has it been since Marcello left?”

“Half an hour, at least.”

“You know what, screw it, Roma. We’re going to go back to the station alone and hope that we can catch up with Marcello. Vincenzo will have to find his own way home.”

“Better than sitting here all night. Just don’t let my mother know, or I’ll never hear the end of it. You got everything?”

“I didn’t bring anything.”

“Great.”

When she finally got back to Cresto D’oro, Luisa stood outside her door for a few minutes, preparing herself for the lecture her parents would surely give her about being home after curfew. She opened the door and waited for someone to start the scolding, but she heard nothing.

Curiously, she tiptoed into the kitchen, where she saw her parents sitting at the table, with Valencia nervously tapping her fingers against a cup of caracadé. Cosimo sat upright, his hands folded.

Neither of them noticed Luisa.

“Valencia, I need to go now. Vincenzo’s been waiting for me for over an hour!”

Luisa’s brow furrowed. Valencia shook her head and spoke.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Listen to me. We’ve taken every precaution we can to make sure no one finds out. It will be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It’ll be like after Carmen escaped from the prison in _Carmen_. Nobody found her for a long time.”

“Oh, come on! Don Jose found her,” Valencia said cynically. “And he killed her, too.”

“Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the best example. My point is, it’s going to be alright.”

Valencia sighed and gulped down the last of the carcadé. “You don’t know what you’re messing with!”

“It will be fine! My political leanings are a little clearer than I’d like, but I haven’t been caught yet.”

“This is different! This is so much different! You know, they just caught a bunch of them in Turin, and they left them hanging along the side of the road…”

“We’re not in Turin. Vincenzo thinks it will be hard to get supplies because we live in the middle of nowhere, and he’s right, but the good thing is the Germans won’t be expecting a movement in the country.”

“Cosimo de Cicco, you’d better be alright.”

“I will,” Cosimo said, cupping Valencia’s face in his hand. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Please be safe.”

“I will.”

He stood up to leave and saw Luisa standing in the doorway. 

She froze, and Valencia gasped.

Cosimo cleared his throat. “Roma...I—”

“What were you talking about?” 

“I...well, you see...uh…” Cosimo looked over at Valencia, who did nothing, then looked down and dashed out the door before he could give a proper answer, which was probably the most awkward thing he could’ve done at the moment.

Some philosopher, I guess.

Luisa turned to her mother.

“I thought Vincenzo was supposed to pick up my friends and I.”

“He was,” she sighed.

“So why is he waiting for Papà?”

“He must’ve forgotten.”

“But what are they doing?”

Valencia stared down at the table. “Go to bed, Roma.”

“What were they doing? I want to know!”

Valencia sighed and motioned for Luisa to sit down. She did, and Valencia began to talk. “I think it’s no surprise to you that your father isn’t very...patriotic…”

“I know.”

“I keep saying that he’s going to get himself killed, but he’s off in La Spezia with Vincenzo Aiello doing God knows what to get the Germans out of the country, and after that...I don’t know. He probably has his hopes set on killing Mussolini!”

“So he’s in the resistance?” Luisa hissed. “Doesn’t he know he could die?”

“You know him. He always says what he thinks, and no amount of begging is going to change that.”

“Mamma, aren’t you worried about him?”

“Of course I am! But like I said, he’s very determined!”

Luisa gave a frustrated sigh and tilted her head back. “I’m going to sleep. If he doesn’t come back in the morning, it’s his fault.”

“Don’t talk like that, Roma.”

Luisa pretended she didn’t hear, went into her room, and began undressing, ever dissatisfied with her body.


	6. Sei

Vincenzo took a drag on his cigarette and looked at Cosimo as he walked into the tavern.

“Ah, finally here,” he sighed, tossing the cigarette on the ground and stomping the flame out.

“I’m sorry I’m so late. Valencia wouldn’t let me leave.”

“Women...”

“I know,” Cosimo laughed. “We’d better get going.”

With that, they left for the University of St. Veronica in La Spezia, the school Cosimo taught at, seeing that he had told the others earlier that they would be free to meet in his philosophy classroom.

As they walked through the dark halls of the school, the two of them talked.

“We’ll be lucky if we didn’t miss this thing,” Vincenzo muttered.

“Here it is,” Cosimo said. “136. Philosophy.”

“I know. I come here every day for _your_ class.”

Vincenzo knocked five times, the way he was told, and the door opened. A dark woman with eyes as black as her hair answered and frowned slightly.

“Signor de Cicco. It’s about time you came!”

“My wife wouldn’t let me leave.”

“Well she doesn’t suspect anything, does she?”

“Relax, Gemma. She knows, and she won’t tell anyone.”

“Are you sure?”

“She promised. And I have never seen her break a promise. I _am_ scared my son might suspect something, though, but it’s not like he’s a Mussolini fanatic or anything.”

“ _Mio dio_. Your other son, right? Not this one?”

Stifling a laugh, Cosimo replied, “Vincenzo’s not my son. I thought people knew that.”

“Ah, that’s right. Roma is Emelia’s age, isn’t that right?”

“A year older. In any case, I’m trying not to worry about what he’ll do, whether he knows or not. We may have a bald-old-son-of-a-bitch for a dictator, but we haven’t really come to the lowest common denominator of a son turning in his father, have we? Also, how did you get in without my key?”

Gemma rummaged through her purse and pulled out a bobby pin. “We had Giorgia Bianchi with us. Her father’s the locksmith over in Lontano Collina, and when she was young, she says that picking the locks was her favorite way to pass the time. Regardless, you two missed the meeting.”

“Would you mind filling us in on it?” Vincenzo asked.

“The Nazis are invading from the north and retreating from the south, and they have makeshift defenses set up south of here. We’re going to go there Wednesday night, attack them, and try to take what we can to cripple them. The CLN is providing ammunition and guns.”

“I’ll try not to fall asleep, Signora, but I can’t promise much.” Vincenzo said.

“Oh, please, don’t call me Signora. It’s Gemma. Gemma Tomasi.”

Vincenzo shook her hand. “Vincenzo Aiello.”

The raid that Wednesday went as they had planned. The Linea Verde Vigilantes, as they called themselves, stole about 100 rounds of Nazi ammunition.

Not long afterwards, the Germans received a tip saying that there was ‘suspicious resistance activity’ in the town of Cresto D’oro.

As such, a lieutenant named Novak Engel and his troop were sent from the Green Line to a fort near the town to investigate. This was partially due to Novak’s past experience as a police detective, and partially due to his uncanny ability to be able to inference a lot of things about people after only a short time.

Novak was a handsome man, twenty-eight years old, blonde haired, blue eyed, a southern Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Gypsy; overall, he was the poster child of a good German citizen.

Not to mention, he was an incredibly good liar, and though he had always been a rather unempathetic man, since joining the war effort, he had been hardened into a man that wouldn’t let any of his emotions get in the way of doing what was required of him.

On September 30, he walked into La Spezia with his back straight and his head held high. It was a chilly day, and in the market, people were arguing about the price of whatever it was they were buying.

Novak examined them with a certain indescribable focus, knowing that whoever he was looking for might just be the last person he’d expect.

He looked at the sellers in the stalls, hawking their wares: vegetables, wine, various unwanted objects, figs, olives, et cetera, and he didn’t take much note of them.

He saw Vincenzo leaning against a tree with a thick book in his hands. He was trying to read the words inside and write translations in the margins.

 _A bookworm, probably_ , Novak thought.

He saw Valencia buying some olive oil, talking quietly to the man at the stand.

His gaze turned to a young woman’s breasts, and while was thinking how it would feel to be in her arms, he felt someone shove into him. Looking down, he saw Flavio get up from the ground and try to run off with Vincenzo’s book. 

“ _Guarda dove stai andando, dannazione!_ ” he yelled. “Watch where you’re going, dammit!”

Flavio looked back at Luisa and Marcello, surprised that the man could speak Italian. “ _Scheisse_!” he said to Novak in reply, excited that he could finally use the curse words Vincenzo had taught him.

 _Hoodlums,_ thought Novak, _all three of them._

The three walked away, and Novak found himself staring at Luisa, noticing a strange aura about her.

The boy he seemed to see was not like any of the delinquents from his youth, nor any of the eager young recruits for the military. Luisa was softer, walked more gracefully, and though she flashed a reckless, typically-boyish smile as she laughed with Flavio and Marcello, Novak found that she reminded him of the girls he had met in France, the young virgins who would laugh at the slightest brush of his lips on theirs.

The ones who, for a second, made Novak forget the things he had seen since the war began and sink into a sort of pleasure, if only they would stop being such lying bitches.

It was a strange thing.


	7. Sette

Not long after that first raid, the Linea Verde Vigilantes attacked another fort. It went considerably less well than the first, and Vincenzo was running away at the end of it all when he felt a strong, sudden grip on his arm and the burning cut of metal through his jacket and onto his skin. 

He elbowed his attacker in the stomach, hard. Reeling back, he loosened his grip. Vincenzo broke free and ran off, clutching his right arm in pain.

Once the Vigilantes were safe again in the haven of the dark philosophy classroom, Cosimo noticed something dark and red seeping through Vincenzo’s sleeve.

“What happened?” he asked. “Are you alright?” 

“I’ll be fine.” Vincenzo winced. “Almost got captured, and the guy slashed my arm.” He turned to Gemma. “Do we have anything to stop the bleeding?”

Gemma dug through her purse, rummaging through the weapons and medical supplies she had put inside. She found some gauze, pulled it out, and threw it to Vincenzo.

“ _Grazie_ ,” he said. “ _Grazie_.”

The Vigilantes sat in silence for a long time, contemplating their defeat.

At some point while Vincenzo was busy fighting Nazis, Flavio woke up and noticed nobody was next to him.

Now, Flavio would have liked to believe that he wasn’t concerned; that his brother’s whereabouts didn’t bother him in the slightest, but he would have been lying. 

He sat up and looked around the room. “Vincenzo?” he asked. Flavio lit a candle, wishing electricity wasn’t rationed (and that his family had electricity) and searched some more around the room, hoping someone would be there.

Nobody. 

Flavio blew out the candle and fell against the mattress. “Where the hell is he?” he wondered aloud. 

Suddenly, a thought dawned on him. Vincenzo was up on the rooftop again, looking at the stars. Flavio pulled his jacket off the floor and put it on, silently slipping out of the house.

It was exactly the time you’d expect him to be out; that empty space between day and night, that blank page that was his to write on. 

He climbed the oak tree along the side of the house, praying for Vincenzo to be on the roof. He didn’t even know what he was afraid of. Vincenzo was too normal for anyone to want to hurt him, and he was too boring to be anywhere he would need to keep a secret.

Flavio stood on the flat roof, shivering and unsure of what to do for a long time. Finally, he shakily climbed down the tree and went back inside, unable to sleep.

Two hours later, the bedroom door opened, and Vincenzo snuck in. Flavio sat straight up, and Vincenzo gasped.

“Where the hell have you been?” 

“For God’s sake, keep your voice down—”

“No! Where the hell were you?” Flavio looked down at the dried patches of red on his brother’s jacket. “Holy shit, is that blood?

“Flavio!”

“Is that blood? What happened?”

“Yeah, it’s blood, now calm your ass down, for God’s sake! It doesn’t matter where I was; go back to sleep.”

“You come home at, what, 4:00 in the morning, scare me half to death, and tell me it doesn’t matter?”

“Look, I want to be honest with you, okay? I want to tell you where I was, but I can’t!”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because you’re sixteen years old and act like you’re twelve. I’m just scared that you’re going to say something that gets me in trouble!”

“You shut your goddamn mouth!”

“See what I’m talking about?” Vincenzo asked angrily. He sat down at his desk and rubbed his temples. “Look. If I tell you, you have to swear on your life that you will never tell another living soul.”

“Sure, I swear. Now you can tell me that you screwed some whore in the back of an abandoned warehouse and her boyfriend caught you and slashed your arm!”

“Why are you always like this? I’m trying to talk to you like an adult for five minutes and you’re refusing to act like it!”

Flavio flinched and was silent.

Vincenzo sighed. “I’ll tell you when you’re mature enough to handle it. That might be tonight, that might be years from now, with my luck. Now come on. We’re going to the rooftop.”

Flavio knew that as far as this was concerned, Vincenzo was bound to know more than him, so begrudgingly, he followed his brother to the rooftop, where the two of them sat up looking at the stars.

Vincenzo was thinking about the science of them, something about Galileo or Einstein, surely, but Flavio sat and saw them as what they were, or maybe everything they weren’t. He was comfortable in the silence, and only broke it when he realized something.

“Vincenzo?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you want to go to New York so bad? You want to be an astronomer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So why New York? All the buildings will be in your way and you won’t be able to see anything.”

“Not to mention the lights. It would be hell trying to stargaze in the actual city, but I’d be willing to make a long commute up the state, as long as I get to live in the city itself.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Not anymore than you,” Vincenzo joked, putting Flavio in a friendly headlock. He pulled away from him and punched his bad arm. Vincenzo pretended it didn’t hurt.

“You think I’m crazy? You’re the one who keeps talking like you’ll go there one day.”

“Well, why wouldn’t I?”

“Cause you’re a poor boy from a poor family.”

Vincenzo nodded, acknowledging the truth of the statement. “Maybe. But I’m saving my money, Flavio, and I swear to God I’m going there before I die, one way or another.”

There was another silence, and Flavio focused on some distant star on the horizon. “Where were you tonight?”

“If I tell you, you have to swear on your life you won’t tell anyone. Ever, or at least until the war ends.”

“I promise.”

“Look me in the eyes and say it.”

Flavio turned and looked into his brother’s dark eyes. “I promise.”

Vincenzo took a breath and calmly explained the situation to Flavio, who didn’t say anything. “You alright?” he asked once he was finished. 

“Yeah. Go off and fight Nazis if it makes you feel better about things. Just for God’s sake, be careful.”

Vincenzo smiled slightly. “You got any secrets to tell me now?”

He thought long and hard. “Maybe.”

“Then speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Flavio sighed, unsure of what to say. “Vincenzo?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been…” Here he cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking a lot, and...God, I don’t know. Did you ever see someone, and think...no, let me start over. Is it normal to…” He groaned, frustrated that he didn’t have the words for it. “Forget it.”

“You sure?”

“I don’t know!”

“Flavio?”

“Just forget it! Forget it!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, just forget I ever said anything, alright?”

There was an awkward silence.

“Think we should go back inside?”

“Sure, why the hell not?”

And so, they awkwardly went back inside. 

Flavio was awake until the sun began to creep in through the window; he was too busy thinking, wondering how he could have told Vincenzo his secret and how he would have reacted. 

Uneasily, he laid perfectly still all through the night and decided that he wouldn’t get upset about what he or Vincenzo could have said, because he had not said anything.

He decided to think of Marcello. 

Marcello, with his pretty green eyes and deep voice. 

It was all going to be alright.


	8. Otto

**Part Three**

**October 1943**

It was morning when Valencia laid out the peach dress on the table. Luisa noticed it, and taking a bite of an apple, she asked her mother what she was doing with it.

“Unfortunately,” Valencia began, “This dress doesn’t fit me anymore. I don’t think it has since I gave birth. You can imagine how long it’s been sitting on the dresser. It’s amazing what I can forget about if I start procrastinating.”

“You don’t have to sell it,” Luisa said. “There’s a girl in my school who I think would like it. I could give it to her, you know.”

Valencia thought for a moment. “So I see you’re at _that_ age. Give it to her, then, and be sure to bring her over for dinner some time!”

Luisa blushed and smiled, excited that her plan had worked.

At midnight, she took her mother’s compact mirror, along with some previously stolen lipstick, a makeup brush, and dress, and silently, she crept out the door, listening for any sign that Valencia had woken up.

She didn’t know where she was going, really; she just wanted to find some isolated place where she could put the dress and makeup on and not have anyone bother her. After some time, she found her way into the woods west of the church and began undressing.

She loved the feeling of the cold autumnal air on her skin, and for a moment, she stood still and ran her hand over her shoulder, savoring the feeling, blushing with the thought of someone touching her. Finally, she pulled the dress over herself and fastened the buttons.

 _I’m free_ , she thought, turning it around in her head and repeating it. _I’m free_!

She laughed and threw her arms over herself, spinning around and feeling the swish of the dress on her legs. 

Once she had a hold of herself, Luisa opened the mirror and began to put on the lipstick. It didn’t look very good, and she knew it, but it was nice just to have it on. Besides, no one was there to judge her for it, so what should it matter how it looked?

She was just beginning to rouge her cheeks when she heard the crack of a branch. _It’s probably just some animal_ , she thought, frozen in time, not wanting anything to interrupt her freedom.

She continued dolling herself up until she caught a glimpse of a man walking towards her in the mirror. 

Her heart dropped, and he got closer and began to speak.

“ _Fräulein_ ! _Was machst du in dieser Stunde_ ? _Bist du allein_?”

Luisa didn’t turn around for fear that whoever the man was would see her and realize the truth of what she was doing. She shook and had to keep herself from dropping the mirror.

“ _Fräulein_ ! _Warum sind deine Haare so kurz_?”

Luisa was unable to move, and she hated herself for it. The man came face to face with her and gasped softly.

“ _Jesus Maria…_ ”

The man was handsome, and Luisa thought that might’ve liked him if she wasn’t in such a vulnerable state right then. He was clearly a soldier. His tall boots had been loosely and hastily tied, and his undershirt smelled of sweat, but he had a sort of stone face, and his hair was slicked back enough to be classy, but still held a little youthful and stubborn.

“Please don’t tell anyone!” Luisa begged, her voice breaking. “I’ll take it all off, I—I’ll go home, I promise, just please, for God’s sake, I’ll do anything as long as you don’t—”

“Calm down,” the man whispered in Italian. “I won’t tell anyone. I was just...surprised.”

Luisa breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that surely this man was some sort of saint or angel to not make a big deal out of the situation and give her a talk about the separate roles of men and women, the way her father had when he caught her red-handed with her Valencia's necklace.

“It’s alright.” The man held out his hand. “My name is Novak Engel.”

Luisa hesitated. She was still shaking like a leaf from the shock of the near humiliation, and she didn’t know what to make of Novak. After a moment, though, she shook his hand. “Roma de Cicco.”

“Now, Roma, if I can ask, what exactly is it that you’re doing in the woods at night dressed...like this?”

Luisa looked at her feet and blushed scarlet, making the rouge she had applied practically useless. Under any other circumstances, she would’ve never told anyone the truth. But there was no way she could believably lie about it, and there was something about the way Novak talked to her, something in the way he didn’t treat her like some sort of freak, that made her trust him.

“Well, it’s hard to explain. I think something must have gone wrong when I was born. I’m a girl, I know it, and I’ve always acted like it, but I was born and…” she laughed uncomfortably. “and I’m a guy, and it’s all such a mess!”

Novak nodded and lit a cigarette, suddenly realizing that Luisa was the one from the market that day, the one who confused him so much.

This all would explain it. “Sounds plausible enough. Cigarette?”

Luisa looked up in shock. “Um...thank you, I guess. And no, I don’t smoke much.”

Novak nodded and continued. “I don’t mean to be rude, but how are you so sure that you’re a girl?”

“All my life, I’ve just felt like...I don’t know. Like this isn’t my body, and I’m living the complete opposite of how I’m supposed to be. I’m so sorry you had to see me like this.” 

She hesitated, fiddling with the hem of her dress. “And you know what? Since I told you all that, and since you don’t seem to mind it, forget I ever told you my name.” She stuck out her hand again, and Novak smiled and shook it again. 

“I’ve figured out that if my name isn’t Roma, then it’s Luisa, like Luisa Ferida. I don’t know why; I guess I saw _Il conte di Brechard_ and thought that it would be great to be a Luisa instead of a plain old Roma. That’s the wonderful thing about everyone thinking you’re someone you’re not. You get to reinvent yourself into the person you know you are instead of just being who everyone expects you to be, even if you can never let people know.” 

But as Luisa said this, she realized that she had just let Novak know. Up until that point, she had never done so much as say the name out loud, in fact, she’d hardly considered it hers, and then, telling it to a stranger, she felt a power rise up inside of her. She felt like she could hold the world in her hands and stop whatever bad things were happening.

She felt invincible for once, instead of invisible.

“Luisa...it’s a beautiful name, and it _does_ suit you well. A beautiful name for such a rarely-beautiful girl such as yourself.”

She giggled with the joy of finally hearing her name, as well as the feeling of the compliment. Rare and beautiful, not a sissy and a freak. “Thank you, thank you. I don’t think anyone’s said that to me before. At least, not like _that_. They say I’m handsome, and I guess I am, but I don’t want to be. I guess we’ve already established that. Anyways, thank you. Thank you so much.” There was a pause, and Luisa wondered what Novak was doing in the first place. “What’s a guy like you doing out in the middle of the woods this late?”

“I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep, I go on a walk. It’s so nice to do it now without the fear of being blown to pieces!”

Luisa laughed. “Where’d you come here from?”

“Fontainebleau, near Paris. It’s strange to be out in the country; it almost feels too quiet.”

“Paris, huh? That sounds amazing. And where are you from, originally?”

“Heidelberg.”

Luisa suddenly realized that she was talking to, enjoying the company of a German soldier, a Nazi, and suddenly, all she could think of was her father, off somewhere plotting to kill him and all his companions. 

What if Novak was plotting the same?

She forced the thought out of her, convincing herself that nothing would ever come of it. Whatever was left of Italy was going to lose, that was, if the Americans kept marching on. Novak would be gone soon. “Well, I’m glad we met.”

“Me too.” He glanced up at the sky and took a long drag on his cigarette. “I should probably get back to the barracks now.”

“Should you?”

“Yes, I’ve got to catch up on all the sleep I’ve been losing lately.”

“In that case, hope I’ll see you again sometime,” Luisa admitted, shocking herself. 

“You too.” Novak turned to leave. “Have a good night, _liebchen_!”


	9. Nove

The day after Novak met Luisa was a Saturday, and Marcello Oliveri was sitting on top of the hill, writing under the shade of Nostra Signora. 

He stopped for a moment, mid-paragraph, and looked down at the town. He could only see part of it, and for whatever reason, it bothered him.

Right as he was about to return to his writing, he heard his name being called by his mother. 

“Marcello? Are you out here?”

“I’m on the hill!” he called. “Should I come down?”

“Yes, please!”

Marcello shut his journal and climbed down the hill, standing face to face with his mother. “What do you need, _Day_?”

“I want to talk to you.” 

Marcello groaned in silence, preparing himself for the only possible types of conversation that could happen.

"Why don’t we go inside?” Natale asked.

Marcello nodded, and the two of them began walking towards the house. Signora Bianchi was inside, brewing some hibiscus tea. She uttered a little greeting to the two as they sat at the table.

Natale began speaking in Sinte. “Now, I know you’ve been delaying it for as long as you possibly can, but you’ll be turning seventeen in June. It’s about time we started looking for a wife for you.”

“ _Day_ , come on. It’s 1943. Nobody’s getting married to people they don’t know, especially not my generation!”

“Marcello Emilian, what did I tell you about talking back?”

Marcello sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, but it’s true! Take Lorenzo Rossi, for example. His parents never made him get married, and he’s fine!”

“The Rossis like to pretend they have nothing to do with the Sinti. I don’t want that for you.”

“I’m only saying that I’m not getting married. Why does that have to be such a big deal?”

“Marcello, even Lucia Ricci has a husband by now! You’re the only self-respecting sinto your age who isn’t!”

“I know, I was at her wedding! I was at everyone’s weddings! And you never answered my question. Why is it such a big deal?”

“Why don’t you want to? It’s not that hard, it’s important culturally, now more than ever, and it’s really a wonderful thing!”

Marcello had no answer. In a sense, he knew it, and yet, for once, he didn’t have the words to describe it. He had just never seen himself settling down and having children with a woman. It would never fly with the other Sinti, but he steadfastly refused to do it, and so he had reached a stalemate.

“Marcello?”

“I don’t know. It’s just not something I ever see myself doing. I don’t want to leave school, either.”

“Don’t worry. I was just as nervous when I was your age, and your father and I ended up being very happy together. It’s an awful thing, living alone, and besides, you’ve learned enough to get by in this life.”

Marcello stared out the window, wondering why Natale was always under the assumption that his life was like hers, that they would have similar experiences.

She continued. “In any case, I’m sure I’ll find you a lovely bride. There’s no reason to be so afraid.”

“No reason?” Marcello asked, the volume of his voice rising. Signora Bianchi turned from the stove and looked at him. “I don’t even know the girl! And I’m sure that if Papà was still here—”

“ _Marcello Emilian, that’s enough_!”

Marcello shut his mouth and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am white, American, and therefore no expert in Sinti/Romani culture, nor Italian culture for that matter. If at any point, I get something wrong/accidentally say something offensive towards the cultures I am trying to portray, please leave a comment and let me know what I did and how I might be able to fix it. I appreciate it!


	10. Dieci

Several hours later on that same day, Flavio got into a fight with Vincenzo over the length of his hair and was forced to run to Signora Bianchi’s farm before his brother figured out where the scissors were.

Marcello wasn’t under Nostra Signora, like Flavio had expected, even hoped, that he would be. He had fallen asleep in the house some time after arguing with Natale, woke up when he heard Flavio calling his name, and left the house to meet him. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Vincenzo’s threatening to cut my hair. I had to run out before he found the scissors.”

Marcello began to laugh. It was a true, hearty laugh, something that came rarely to him.

“Jesus Christ, Marcello, are you on laughing gas or something?”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s just...I don’t know why I found that so funny!” Seeing that he was beginning to alarm Flavio, Marcello stopped laughing and cleared his throat.

“Maybe it’s because I just woke up. You know how weird the world is then.” There was a brief pause, and Flavio spoke.

“You wanna go up on the hill?”

“Sure, why not? I like talking to you, anyways.”

Flavio felt his face get hot. Nobody had ever said something like that to him and meant it, and he loved the feeling of hearing the words ring in his mind. He turned them around carefully, as if they could break.

There were three people he truly cared about: Vincenzo, Luisa, and Marcello. Of course, there were other people he liked, but at the end of the day, he wouldn’t know what to do without those three.

Vincenzo was his brother, his own flesh and blood. He was the only one in their family who gave a damn about him. He’d made sure Flavio didn’t scratch himself when he had Chicken Pox, he’d been the one who helped him with his schoolwork as a child. Flavio didn’t like to admit it, but he loved his brother.

Luisa had been at his side for as long as anyone could remember. When Luisa got caught trying to steal a slice of lemon cake while the baker wasn’t looking, it was Flavio who was waiting outside with a fork. All the times Flavio fought Paolo in the schoolyard, Luisa was fighting alongside him. It was the way it always was, and the way he thought it would always be.

Marcello, on the other hand, was something else entirely. Flavio had known Luisa and Vincenzo all his life, but he had only begun to know Marcello in the last few years. 

It’s always strange enough when a new face shows up out of the blue in school, but when you’re in a town like Cresto D’oro and the new face is darker than the rest, it’s a goddamn nightmare for most.

Nobody liked Marcello at first, Flavio included. The students left him out of anything they did whenever they could, and yet he never seemed to mind. 

Flavio had always wondered how he had done that. How could he leave everything; how could he come to a strange place and be perfectly content with being ostracized?

Marcello had been a mystery to Flavio.

In some ways, he still was as the two walked up towards the hill.

All mysteries aside, when Marcello had first come to Cresto D’oro, Flavio didn’t like him, much less know him. 

That didn’t come until the summer. 

It was a warm day, and just after Mass had finished, Flavio went up to Nostra Signora. He hadn’t been there in quite some time, and he had thought that the spot was his and his alone.

It surprised him to see Marcello there, and for a minute he thought of beating him away from the hill, but something came over him, and instead the two had their first conversation.

“Flavio?”

He came out of his mind and looked over at Marcello. “Huh?”

“Are you alright? You’ve been quiet this whole time we’ve been walking.”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking.”

“Thinking?” Marcello asked sarcastically, pretending to act amazed. “Since when have you ever done that?”

“Oh, I do it more than you think.”

Marcello was taken aback by such a serious response from him and genuinely couldn’t think of anything to say.

Flavio spoke again. “Did you mean what you said back there when you told me that you liked talking to me?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I?”

“I just—I don’t think anyone’s ever really said that. Thank you, it means a lot.”

The two of them stood there, on top of the hill, both surprised and pleased by Flavio’s gratitude and honesty.

Finally, Flavio climbed up into the tree, and Marcello stared at him.

“You alright?”

“I just can’t figure out why you go up there so much. You’re going to fall one of these days and break your arm.”

“It’s not like I go up high.”

“Still. Aren’t you worried?”

“Not particularly. You come up here, and yeah, maybe you’ll fall, but I think it’s worth it for the view.”

Marcello shook his head and sat under the tree.


	11. Undici

The Linea Verde Vigilantes struck again. 

It was twilight, and Novak had been sleeping when the door slammed open, and he was woken up by the sounds of shouting and vague gunshots.

He groggily readied himself while smoking a cigarette and went out to fight, not particularly looking forward to it.

The fighting went on for three hours, ending in a victory that didn’t exactly feel like a victory for the resistance.

Somewhere during the second hour, Vincenzo was caught by a young, dashing German soldier. Though paralyzed with fear, he managed to catch the name Engel on his nametag as he was dragged into a room.

“ _Sprechen Sie Deutsch oder Italienisch? Parli tedesco o Italiano?_ ”

“ _Ich spreche beides_ ,” Vincenzo explained. “I speak both.”

The conversation continued in German from there.

“Your name?”

“Vincenzo Aiello,” he said, promptly realizing that he should’ve given a fake name and was an idiot.

“How old are you?”

There was no point in lying about his age, as far as Vincenzo could see, so he answered truthfully. “Eighteen.”

“And how did you get involved with the resistance?”

Vincenzo was silent.

“Answer, boy.”

Silence again. Novak took a standard-issued knife out of his pocket and held it up against Vincenzo’s neck, not far enough to hurt him, but just close enough to scare him into compliance.

“Hey! Hey! It was a friend of mine, alright?”

Novak drew back the knife but still held it. “Who’s the friend?”

“A man I know from university.”

“And where do you go to university?”

“I’m not telling you that!”

“Listen. There’s one major university in the area, and it’s St. Veronica’s. Either you go there or you’re lying about everything.”

Vincenzo came to the realization that he was losing, and scrambled to think of something. “Kill me now,” he said, secretly hoping Novak wouldn’t. “You’re not going to get anything else out of me.”

Novak realized that in the course of the minute they’d been talking, Vincenzo had changed his mind about his readiness to die for the resistance. In this, he saw potential.

The boy was weak; hardly a man, and childlike in some sense. He could be used as a pawn to Novak’s advantage.

He put the knife back in his pocket.

“You know, St. Veronica’s what established in the 1400s,” he explained, seemingly out of the blue.

Vincenzo was confused, and hesitated, but responded anyway.“Y-Yes, during the renaissance.”

“What courses are you taking there?”

Vincenzo had to stifle a laugh. There he was, handcuffed, being interrogated by a man with a knife, and he was asking him what courses he took in school? It was like a language textbook come to life!

“Answer, boy. What courses are you taking?”

“I’m majoring in astronomy.”

“What else?”

“I’m taking European history, English, German literature, philosophy, and linear algebra.”

“Interesting.”

“Why aren’t you interrogating me?”

“I am, don’t worry.”

 _Watch what you’re saying, you moron_! Vincenzo thought, once again realizing that he was an idiot.

An official came into the room looking panicked. “Lieutenant! You’re needed back on the field!”

Novak groaned. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Just take him prisoner and move on with your life!” the official said before hurrying out the door as quickly as he came.

Novak sighed and turned back to Vincenzo. “Mr. Aiello, I give you two options. Either I take you prisoner, and you are tortured for information, or you go free and—”

Vincenzo stood up.

“ _Sitzen Sie_! Sit back down! You didn’t let me finish.”

Vincenzo sat back down. 

“You go free, on the condition that you give me information. You will not be killed and you will not be arrested. But if you lie to me, you will be. The choice is yours, Mr. Aiello. Which is it?”

Vincenzo looked around, his mind racing. He could give them false information and entrap them, but no, it wouldn’t work, not with his clumsiness.

“I’ll go free,” he decided in the heat of the moment, thinking about being waterboarded in the Ligurian Sea.

“Good. There’s a church in La Spezia, Our Lady of Love. 136 Conciatore Boulevard. I’ll meet you there at eight-thirty in the evening on the 16th of October.”

He wrote the information down and handed it to Vincenzo, who walked back to the University in a daze. When the other Vigilantes came not long after, he was sitting at his desk. 

Cosimo ran up to him.

“Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Someone tried to arrest me, but I got free.”

Cosimo began to pace around the room. “My God, what if they get you again?”

Vincenzo had no reply. 

“Why aren’t you worried? They know what you look like now! Grow a beard. Pretend you need glasses, just do anything to disguise yourself!”

“Calm down. He didn’t see me long.” Vincenzo sighed. “I’m going home.”

Cosimo nodded, and Vincenzo left.


	12. Dodici

The story gets heavy from here, so take a breath and savor this calm before the storm.

From Marcello’s journal:

_11th October 1943_

_Dear God, where do I even begin with today?_

_Signora Bianchi sent me out to La Spezia today to sell the olive oil. Our fears have turned out to be true. People won’t buy from us. Can you believe that? We’re in the middle of a war, and these people would rather starve than eat olives they bought from gypsies. Do they know how many people would kill for olives in Genoa?_

_Regardless, I was in a good mood. Signora Bianchi said that since I’d helped with the harvest so much, I could keep some of the money I made. I tried to decline, but she insisted._

_Signora Travossi came over with her youngest daughter, that stick-girl of hers, and told me I was charging too much. Typical of gypsies, she said. But hey, that bitch bought oil anyways, so what do I care?_

_Signor Fiorelli came by later and bought some; We talked for a while. He says he’s looking for a husband for Agnese. I don’t know much about her; I’ve only really talked to her once at her sister Sienna’s wedding at the request of my mother. I thought she was a bit delusional, to be honest. She couldn’t shut up about how excited she was to get married to someone, and how great it would be. I hope she gets a husband who’s like her, someone who’s going to be her ‘one true love’, whatever that means._

_I remember now that she also said something about liking Roma, but of course, she’d never be allowed to go with him, and he would never be allowed to go with her. If things were different though, I do think the two of them would be good for each other. Both so dramatic and romanticizing everything...it’s probably why they’re friends in the first place!_

_Speaking of Roma, he came by just to talk to me. His mother was running errands, and she didn’t trust him to be home alone after the last time when he broke a vase. He says that his mother started rambling on about Verdi’s operas vs. Puccini's on the way there, and while he didn’t mind it, he had to leave to avoid hearing anymore or he was going to die from the monotony of it._

_He seemed a bit...off. Unusually giddy. It seemed like he wanted to tell me something but couldn’t. I kept wondering if someone was going to jump up behind me and try to scare me, but nothing ever happened. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if he’s gone and planned anything._

_The best part of my day was when Flavio came by. He looked a little nervous, and he wouldn’t look me in the eye. We made small talk for a little, and then he asked me if I wanted to go see a movie on Saturday._

_I initially said that he didn’t have to; it was too much money to waste on me, but he said it didn’t matter and that he insisted._

_I asked if Roma would be there._

_He said no._

_I agreed, and we made awkward conversation for a while before leaving. I made him take some olive oil before he left, but he gave me too much for them. I tried to tell him, but he didn’t hear. I think he did it on purpose._

_He’s really gotta learn the value of money..._

_Anyways, I’m excited to learn what his offer means, even though it’s probably nothing._

_But still, it will just be us, alone, can you believe that?_

_I’ve dreamt of that before. Just the two of us, far away, somewhere where no one can tell us what to do._

_Somewhere where the war doesn’t matter, and we can just be free._

_I want to be free._

_Marcello Oliveri_


	13. Tredici

It was night. The world had laid herself down, the blackout curtains were drawn, and Valencia sat in the main room, listening to _Il Trovatore_ on the record player and mending Cosimo’s nice shirt, occasionally singing along.

“ _Chi del gitano i giorni abbella? Chi del gitano i giorni abbella? Chi? Chi i giorni abbella?_ ”

The clock cut through the music, ringing ten times. 

Valencia always went to bed at ten o’clock with hardly any exception, and so she took the record off the record player and went down the hallway towards her bedroom, folding the shirt as she went. She undid her hair and got into her ivory-colored nightgown. Just when she was ready to go to sleep, she walked down the hallway and looked into Luisa’s room. 

Luisa was seemingly sleeping. Her slow, soft breaths filled the room, her tufts of black hair glistened in the moonlight.

Valencia began to sing softly, looking at her. “ _Chi del gitano i giorni abbella? Chi del gitano i giorni abbella? Chi? Chi i giorni abbella?_ ” It was her way of saying goodnight to Luisa, ever since she was young.

Most nights it was something from _Carmen_ , Valencia’s favorite opera. Occasionally, she’d throw in some Verdi, a little Puccini, _Nessun Dorma_ from _Turandot_ especially, seeing as it seemed to calm Luisa, and every now and then, _Voi Che Sapete_.

By the time Valencia returned to her room, Cosimo was preparing to leave for the University.

“Have a good night, Valencia.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “You too. Please be safe.”

“I will.”

Valencia kissed her husband on the cheek and watched him leave the room, her heart sinking.

She sat on the bed for a while before taking out her wooden rosary and praying for Cosimo. Once she was mellowed out, she walked down the hall again and opened Luisa’s door, finding that she wasn’t asleep, but instead was standing next to her bed.

Luisa heard the door creaking and tossed the mirror under her bed, and with it all hopes of sneaking out to the woods that night.

Valencia, hoping to be reminded of the good things she had in her life, was confused. “What are you doing up?”

“I...I was thirsty,” Luisa said convincingly. “What are you doing up?”

“I came in to check on you.”

“Why?”

Valencia felt her face redden, and she cleared her throat. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Luisa furrowed her brow.

“Well, go on, now! Get some water and go back to sleep.”

With that, she left.


	14. Quattordici

_16 October, 1943_

_Well, today was the day._

_I must admit, it went pretty well. Flavio came and we walked to the train station, where we got on a train to La Spezia._

_For some reason, it reminded me of when we left Genoa, and Papá woke me up on the train and told me we were here. Come to think of it, I just looked back on the entry from that day, and boy, was I melodramatic back then!_

_I was excited for school, of course, and Columbo, Enrico, Franco, and all the others had wished me all the best, but I was so fixated on the idea of making them jealous. There was nothing to be jealous about in the first place! It’s so selfish, actually. ‘Look at me, I get to leave and not have to worry about being bombed!’ ‘Look at me, I get to go to school!’ I think I ought to confess that, especially now with Advent coming up in December; I’m surprised I haven’t already._

_It’s so strange now, to look back and read everything I wrote about Papá. Maybe I didn’t know it then, but he was very excited to come here, and not just because he didn’t want to get blown up. He was very excited that I would have a good education. I wonder a lot how he worked so well with a traditional woman like Day. He always wanted me to speak Italian in public, didn’t care if I talked to the gadzos...he was very progressive, or at least, very set on making sure I acted like an Italian._

_It’s been a long time since he died, but God, do I miss him. I’d like to hear what he thinks about the war, what he would say about Paolo, what he thinks of arranged marriage, but I guess I’ll never know._

_Anyways, I was a nervous wreck the whole way to La Spezia, and so I stared out the window almost the whole time. When we started nearing the city, though, my nerves had steadied some, and I was able to start talking to Flavio._

_He looked so nice; his hair was pulled back into a ponytail, he was wearing his nicer clothes...he reminded me of some dashing hero you’d read about in The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers, silly as it sounds._

_We saw ‘La Cena Della Beffe’. I hadn’t seen it before, since I don’t get out much, and I thought it was great. Flavio kept trying to talk to me during the movie, though, which was driving me up a wall._

_We got out of the theater around the time the sun was going down. I suddenly had an idea, and I led him down to the beach. He looked up at the sky, and I took off my shoes and socks and stood in the sea._

_“What are you doing?” Flavio asked._

_“Did you ever meet my father?”_

_“What? Um, I think I met him once.”_

_“Do you remember when he died?”_

_“Marcello, are you alright?”_

_“Yeah, I’m fine. You’ll see why we’re here, don’t worry. The night he died, my mother shut herself up in her room with him and wouldn’t let me talk to her. I didn’t know what to do, so I started walking._

_“I walked aimlessly for a long time before getting on a train to La Spezia. There wasn’t a moon in the sky, and it was the clearest night I’ve ever seen. I went to the beach and stood in the ocean._

_“It was completely dark. You couldn’t tell what was the sky and what was the water, or where either of them ended, if they ever did. I took comfort in that.”_

_“So why are you here with me?”  
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done it, and I thought you might like to try it.” _

_“Oh.”_

_“Well? Go ahead, take off your socks and your shoes.”_

_He did it, and the waves washed over our feet, cool and sudden._

_I shivered._

_“You want my jacket?” Flavio asked._

_I blushed. “Are you sure you don’t need it?”_

_“Yeah. Just take it.”_

_He gave it to me, and I put it on._

_We stood there in silence for a long time. The clouds rolled over us, and it began to rain, light at first, then heavier and heavier._

_We ran off the beach with our shoes, getting soaked to the skin and looking for anywhere to go inside._

_I have never felt more in love than I did wh_ _en we were running through the rain and laughing..._


	15. Quindici

Flavio and Marcello eventually snuck into a church that they didn’t know the name of, trying to stifle their laughter while a statue of The Virgin Mary gazed down at them. 

The sound of the rain echoed above them, and candlelight illuminated the church.

As Marcello admired the statue of the Virgin, Flavio looked deep into his eyes, wondering if he could just melt into them.

“Are you alright?” Marcello asked softly.

Flavio quickly looked away. “Yeah. Are you?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, and both of them felt a strange awareness of the other.

“Marcello, do you ever feel like—” He stopped, unsure of how to end the question, praying that Marcello wouldn’t be disgusted if he told him how he felt and leave him bleeding in the gutter for trying anything with him. “You ever feel like maybe there’s something wrong with us?”

Marcello felt himself get hot and took off Flavio’s jacket, feeling the cool air on his dry skin. He wondered if Flavio was talking about what he thought he was talking about, if he really wasn’t the only one who could stare off at some pretty boy in the market and feel a strange longing to be in his arms. “What do you mean?”

Flavio looked down at the ground. “It’s...I don’t know. Something is different about us. I can tell.”

“Something always has been,” Marcello added, his stomach churning, unable to look away from his friend.

“I don’t think I care too much if something is.”

Marcello nodded and extended the jacket in front of him, his dark hands shaking. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.”

“You’re welcome.” Flavio looked up and took his jacket, then put his hand on Marcello’s and leaned towards him. Neither of them knew what had happened that made things escalate so far, other than impulse, but neither would ruin the moment and stop the other. 

Just when they were about to kiss, the church doors slammed open.

Marcello turned pale and shoved Flavio away from him as he pulled them into a dark corner, where they could hear two men walk through the church while talking.

“ _Dieser Mann_ ? _Sind Sie sicher, dass er keinen Tropfen Zigeunerblut in ihn hat_?” said one of them.

“ _Ja. Er ist Sizilianer. Sie wissen jedoch, wie es sie ihnen geht. Gerüchten zufolge ist er ein Afrikaner_ ,” said the other.

Flavio wondered why the voice sounded familiar, but before he could place it, the first man spoke.

“ _Zigeuner oder Afrikaner_ ,” he mused. “ _Ich weiß nicht, was schlimmer ist_!”

Both men laughed and continued talking. 

Marcello grabbed Flavio’s arm, but he didn’t move. “We have to leave; now!” he whisper-yelled, shaking hard.

Flavio jerked him away and said nothing.

“What are you doing? We have to go! They could have seen us, and God knows what could have happened then!”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Flavio fixed his eyes on a candle, a realization dawning on him. “That’s...that’s…” It was like he had fallen from a dream into a nightmare; from heaven into hell, like Dante. “That’s Vincenzo.”

“What?”

“That’s Vincenzo! He’s talking to the German guy!”

“How do you know?”

Vincenzo thought he heard a voice and looked around nervously. “Hello? Anyone there?” he asked in Italian.

Novak’s brow furrowed. “Now who the hell are you talking to?”

“I thought I heard someone.”

Novak grunted, and the two left to another part of the church. Flavio caught a glimpse of the two men as they walked off, and his suspicions were confirmed.

Marcello pulled him out through the door, gazing at the statue a final time before suddenly finding himself standing in the rain, which had slowed down since the two had entered. 


	16. Sedici

“I’m sure it’s not what it looked like,” Marcello explained as the two stepped onto the train. 

“Damn right it wasn’t!”

Marcello sighed and sat down. Lowering his voice, he continued. “Look, I know you’re worried about him, because he’s your brother, and you have to, but even I know that he’s not a Nazi! And so what if he was? Everyone these days is!”

“So what? _So what?_ Marcello, think about what might happen to us!”

Marcello’s brow furrowed, and he narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Us? What does this have to do with you? What does this have to do with anyone? I’ve told you once, I’ll tell you again: let me worry about myself. Vincenzo would never do anything to hurt you.”

Flavio felt his eyes sting. “Yeah? Well what about you?”

“Flavio—”

“No, really! What if he hurts you?”

“He has no reason to. I’ve never wronged him. And what would he do, anyways? Put me on a train to Germany?”

“Maybe!”

Marcello put a hand on Flavio’s shoulder. “Hey, get a hold of yourself. I don’t know why you’re so worried about all of this.”

 _He’s in the resistance,_ Flavio thought, dying to tell Marcello. _He’s not supposed to be talking to Nazis. Unless..._ Another realization dawned on him. He wasn’t giving them information or anything; he was a spy. A double agent. He was taking information from the Germans and was going to give it to the resistance. He took some breaths, convincing himself of this. 

Marcello and Flavio were silent until they finally got back to Cresto D’oro. They walked back to the Bianchi farm, Flavio scanning everywhere for any sort of danger.

“Thank you for taking me along” Marcello began. “I had a lot of fun.” Flavio blushed, remembering the warmth of the church. “And don’t worry about Vincenzo.”

“I won’t. Not anymore, at least. I don’t know what happened back there; sorry about it.”

“I’ll see you soon, alright?”

“Yeah,” Flavio agreed, turning to leave.

Marcello went into the house and paced around his room, giddy with the thrill of first love and sick with the thought that someone could have seen the two of them. Finally, he laid himself down, feeling Flavio’s warmth every time he closed his eyes.


	17. Diciasette

When Vincenzo got home that night, he saw Flavio sitting on the rooftop, looking up at the few stars shining through the clouds, and climbed up the tree to join him.

“‘Evening.”

“Where were you?” Flavio said, trying not to sound annoyed.

“I have a philosophy essay due on Monday, but I left the draft at school. Signor de Cicco agreed to take me there and let me in to get it,” Vincenzo lied. He felt guilty and quickly changed the subject. “How was the movie?”

“It was fine.”

“How’s Marcello doing?”

“Why do you care?” 

“I don’t know; I just thought I’d ask to be polite.”

Flavio closed his eyes. “He’s doing nice. Really nice.”

“That’s good.”

There was a long silence, and Flavio laid down on the roof and sighed. “Vincenzo, this isn’t Italy.”

“What?” he asked, caught off-guard by the sudden change of topic.

“This isn’t Italy,” he stated, turning to face his brother.

Vincenzo was intrigued by the rare seriousness in Flavio’s voice, and tried to get him to continue talking. “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t Italy anymore, dammit! I know I’m too young to really talk about it; hell, if this ain’t Italy then I didn’t even know the old one, but even I know this isn’t the Roman Empire! This isn’t whatever the hell Mussolini wants it to be! It’s a shitshow, Vincenzo. It’s a goddamn clusterfuck, and it’s only a matter of time before the fall of the ‘New Roman Empire’!”

Vincenzo thought for a moment, surprised by the truth of his words, and then nodded, beginning to whisper. “I know. That’s why I’m in the resistance. I guess I always wanted to get out of Italy, so I shouldn’t care what happens, but I grew up here, and I hate facism. I couldn’t stand to see us go down like _that_.” Looking up at the stars, he absentmindedly added, “I don’t think I realized that until I really started talking to Cosimo.”

“Who?”

“Signor de Cicco.”

“You’re on a first name basis with Signor de Cicco?”

“Yeah. Anyways, what I mean is, I never thought Fascism was that bad until he opened my eyes. I owe a lot of myself to him, and I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“I guess that’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Vincenzo whispered, trying not to let the weight of his guilt crush him. 

“Which one is Cassiopeia again?” Flavio asked, looking at the sky.

“That one,” Vincenzo explained as he pointed, happy to change the subject. “The one that looks like the English letter ‘W’.”

“I don’t know what that looks like.”

“An upside down ‘M’.”

“Alright, I think I see it now.”

“I always loved that one.”

“I know. I think of you every time I see it.”

They were quiet.

“You know, you made a good point back there with Italy. You’re a lot more mature than I give you credit for, and back to the topic of Italy not being itself, that’s sort of why I want to go to New York. There are a lot of Italian emigrants there, as I’m sure you know, and they left way before the March on Rome. They can remember the days before Mussolini. I guess, in a sense, they can remember the real Italy.”

Flavio sat up and looked at Vincenzo. “Are you really planning to leave? To go to America?”

“As soon as I have enough money to do it, I will. The south has surrendered, after all, even if we haven’t, so maybe, just maybe, I could get there and go to America.”

“I think I’d like to go with you.”

Vincenzo smiled and ruffled his brother’s hair.


	18. Diciotto

**Part Four**

**October, 1943**

_  
21 October, 1943_

_It finally happened today. I’ve been trying to keep it from happening, but I was a fool to think it would work._

_I came home from school today and was excited. Things between Flavio and I seemed to be going very well (though we haven’t talked about that night in the church), I didn’t get beat up, and Roma and I got to work together in mathematics._

_My mother was making hibiscus tea when I got home, and she told me that she had some good news and to sit down._

_I did._

_She said that she’s thought it over for a long time, and today, she finally went over to Signor Fiorelli’s house to arrange a marriage between Agnese and I._

_She started rambling on about what I should give her for the Plotchka, the dowry we’re going to have to pay, et cetera, et cetera. Filler, filler, filler. Trying to soften the blow._

_I heard it, but I didn’t listen._

_I can’t tell her why I can’t get married. I can’t tell her about that night in the church. Hell, I can’t even explain it! All I know is that these things aren’t supposed to happen. Not between boys. Not between a sinto and a gadzo._

_I can’t break her heart and tell her. I can’t disappoint her, after all she’s been through to get me where I am._

_Marcello Oliveri_


	19. Diciannove

Though he had been fine on the rooftop, Vincenzo had started acting incredibly strange ever since he gave Novak the information, and who could blame him?

Across the span of a few weeks, he hardly talked to Flavio, or anyone, for that matter, claiming that he had a lot of schoolwork to do. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, considering that he was doing all the extra credit he could to distract him from what he did. 

It was only natural that Cosimo noticed, and so he pulled the boy aside after Philosophy to talk to him about it one day.

“Maybe you should come over sometime and clear your mind. You haven’t visited us in a while, and it would give you a better chance to talk about what’s happening.”

“It’s alright. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Do you think you’re getting sick? You’ve always been a hard worker and all, but this isn’t like you. I can tell you haven’t been sleeping, either...”

“I’m not sick, dammit! Will you _please_ let me go to Algebra now?”

“Vincenzo, I just want to make sure that nothing has happened.” Cosimo lowered his voice. “Are people suspicious? Do you think one of the Germans recognized you?

“No,” Vincenzo lied. “No, it’s alright. Don’t worry about me.”

Cosimo nodded solemnly. “I suppose I’ll see you here tonight, then.”

Before he could think to stop himself, Vincenzo said, “I’m sorry, I’m not coming.”

“Why not?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but he could think of no excuse, so he groaned and started off on his way as Cosimo stood in confusion.

Flavio woke up that night after hearing someone saying strange and foreign-sounding words. It appeared that someone had lit the candles, and sure enough, when he lifted his head he saw Vincenzo, reading American poems aloud from that thick black book.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Studying,” Vincenzo explained without looking away. “I need to work on my English pronunciation.”

“What time is it?”

“No clue.”

“You’ve been up since I went to sleep! What the hell kinda test you got tomorrow?”

“None.”

Flavio was dumbfounded, and audibly guffawed at the sheer insanity of his brother. “Are you drunk or something?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Blow out the goddamn candles!”

“Just get back to sleep!”

Flavio threw his hands up and laid back down, muttering.

Vincenzo finished studying at four in the morning, got a pair of scissors from the drawer, and, in his tiredness, decided to do something he’d wanted to do for a long time.

When Flavio woke up for school that morning, he found that his side of the bed was covered in scattered tufts of his own long brown hair, and he swore that he was going to kill his brother.


	20. Venti

Valencia had woken up screaming, terrified that Cosimo was going to be caught and killed. Luisa was in her room when it happened, preparing to go out to the woods again. She had heard the scream and ran into her mother’s room, a little annoyed that something like this happened every time she tried to leave.

“It was just a dream,” she explained, sitting on the side of the bed.

“I know that, Roma!”

“It doesn’t mean anything. You’re just scared for no reason. He’s alright!”

“You don’t understand. You’re too young to know how awful it would be if he was caught…”

Luisa grunted. “But he won’t be. How many times has he told you that already?”

“But what if he is?”

Luisa rubbed her temples and groaned. “Look, I’m going to go back to sleep now. I don't know how to help you. Good night, Mamma. Please calm down”

“ _Nessun dorma_ ,” Valencia said somewhat ominously. “None shall sleep.”

Luisa turned, already halfway through the door. “You clearly need to.”

The next morning, Luisa walked to the Bianchi farm like she did every morning, where she found Flavio was running his hands along his neck, which was pale without his long hair to cover it.

She stopped and stifled a laugh. “Flavio, is that you? What the hell happened to your hair?”

“Vincenzo! That asshole cut it while I was sleeping!”

Marcello came out of his house and adjusted his saddlebag, taking note of Flavio’s new look and smiling. “It looks nice.”

“It was better long.”

“No, I think it’s better like this.” Marcello complimented. “It makes you look handsome, and older, too. You’re not a hot-headed little boy anymore.”

“Yeah, now he’s a hot-headed little man!”

Flavio blushed, still a little angry, and the three began walking to school.

“How is Vincenzo, anyways?” Luisa asked.

“Why do you ask?”

Luisa sighed. “I don’t know. We haven’t seen him around lately. I think my mom misses having company.”

“He’s fine, but he’s overworking himself, like always. That bastard stayed up for at least four hours last night studying English.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! He doesn’t even have a test today! He _has_ been acting kinda weird, though. I think he’s just making himself stressed for no reason.”

Luisa walked on, deciding she wouldn’t tell that to her mother and worry her.


	21. Ventuno

Cosimo was teaching his philosophy course at St. Veronica’s that morning, the way he did everyday. Vincenzo was in that class, taking notes on value theory, when there was a knock at the door.

Cosimo stopped lecturing to answer it, expecting to see a teacher asking to borrow a book, or a student coming in late that he would glare at as he walked to his seat. But instead, standing outside that door was the school’s dean, as well as several police officers.

Cosimo cleared his throat and tried to mask his fear. “Hello, Signori. What seems to be the problem?”

“Signor de Cicco, the police have received word that you’re conspiring to undermine the Fascist republic.”

The students began to whisper among themselves.

“What?” Cosimo asked, his heart dropping. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Vincenzo felt his blood run cold as he finally stood face to face with what he had done. He suddenly realized, then and there, that he was a traitor, and worst of all, that he would never get to admit the truth to Cosimo.

It broke him.

“You’re under arrest, Signor de Cicco.”

“During the lecture?” he asked, his voice rising with confusion and panic.

“This isn’t exactly a matter that can wait,” One of the officers said as he handcuffed the philosopher. Cosimo looked towards the class in shock and smiled nervously, trying to convince the students and himself that all was well. 

“Don’t worry, this will all be cleared up soon.”

Another officer entered the room and began to speak. “To make sure that none of you have conspired with him, each one of you will be briefly interrogated, beginning now.” 

Cosimo was led out of the room. The whole time, he looked at Vincenzo, silently begging him not to give anything away. 

Vincenzo stared back, but did not think, focusing on the sinking feeling in his stomach.

The students were supposed to be interrogated in alphabetical order according to Cosimo’s roster, though when the police began, they started with Lorenzo Calcagno, not Vincenzo Aiello. 

The realization dawned on him that Novak had kept his word, and, despite his fervent prayers, he had no hope of dying with Cosimo.

Nobody noticed his absence from the list, of course. Nobody ever noticed Vincenzo Aiello. In the grand scheme of things, he was never a noteworthy person. He was smart, sure, and therefore got more positive attention from his parents than Flavio, but he was hardly ever someone to write home about.

Disgusted with himself, Vincenzo remembered that Cosimo was the one person who had ever bothered to think differently.


	22. Ventidue

W hen Luisa got home from school that day, she knew as soon as she heard her mother’s wails that something was seriously wrong.

“Mamma? Is everything alright?”

Franco Colombo, the town sheriff, stood up from the armchair he was sitting in and walked towards Luisa, trying not to disturb Valencia, who had crumpled on the floor like a wilted flower. “You’re Roma de Cicco?”

“Yes. Yeah, I am! What happened? Is my mother alright?”

Franco rubbed his neck. He was a gentle and big-hearted man not exactly fit for the position of sheriff, and, since the war had begun, did not particularly enjoy telling people that their wives, children, fathers, sisters, or husbands had been arrested for resistance activity. 

“Look Roma, I hate to tell you, but your father was arrested this morning.”

Valencia looked up at Luisa sternly through her ruined makeup, muttering “I told you,” until Franco gestured for her to stop.

Luisa felt like someone had punched her hard in the gut. Her father had been arrested. Every time he had embarrassed her, every time he had tried to get her to man up, none of it mattered anymore, and she found herself feeling awfully bad about holding any grudge against him. “What for?” she finally asked, stumbling over the simple words.

“The Germans received a tip that he was in the resistance, and we had to arrest him. He was a good man, believe me, but...” Franco sighed. “I have to interrogate the two of you and search the house.”

“But…but he didn’t do anything! He’s innocent!”

“We can’t know for sure, Roma.”

Luisa scanned the room, looking for nothing in particular. “Where is he?”

“He’s being held in the prison in La Spezia, but he’s not allowed visitors; they might try collaborating with him.”

“Nobody's ‘collaborating’, because he didn’t do anything!”

“Roma, that’s enough!” Valencia scolded.

Luisa looked around again, trying to think of something to say in reply, but could find nothing, so she stormed off to her room.

You’d have to be a fool to think Cosimo had any chance of being acquitted. 

In the La Spezia prison, facing the wall, he knew this well, so he saw no reason to think about it for the rest of the day. That would come at night, when he couldn’t sleep.

He was told that the Nazis were tipped off, and not much else about how they found out. Tipped off, Cosimo pondered, despite the fact that he had taken every possible precaution. It must’ve been someone from the inside.

But who could have done it? He was generally well-liked by the Vigilantes, and as far as he knew, no one was a double-agent.

He never for a moment considered Vincenzo; he didn’t even want to think about considering it. It would be too much to bear, the boy he’d been so proud of handing him to the wolves.

The fact was that Cosimo was going to die, and not on his own terms. Many a man would’ve gone mad in his position, but Cosimo remained rather calm throughout the whole ordeal, trying to reason out who could’ve betrayed him and why.

He found nothing, and sighed.

At least in the end, if Vincenzo let something slip back at the school, they’d die together.


	23. Ventitre

Vincenzo lived the rest of the day away from himself, and no matter how hard he tried, nothing he did felt real. He was dreaming, he thought, and he would wake up any minute and go confess what he’d done and warn Cosimo.

He never did, though, so he just went back and forth between his feelings like the pendulum on a clock.

He was alive, at the price of his mentor’s life. But Cosimo was bound to be discovered eventually; it was just a shame that Vincenzo couldn’t have gone with him. Besides, he still had Flavio.

 _No_ , he thought, frustrated. _That’s so selfish_. 

Cosimo wasn’t the traitor. He was trying to save Italy, to keep it from its slow descent into madness. It was the only thing Vincenzo could know for sure.

Flavio took note of how strange his brother had acted all day and tried to talk to him that night before they went to bed.

“I heard that Signor de Cicco was arrested,” he said while sitting on the bed.

Vincenzo didn’t reply and stayed where he was, his head slumped on the desk.

Flavio looked off at the distance, feeling a little embarrassed at what he was going to say next. “I’m really sorry about that. I know how close you were to him.”

It was this statement that got to Vincenzo, finally broke whatever fragile shell was left. He had known this would happen. He had known from the second that he agreed to give Novak information that something awful would happen to Cosimo. 

So why did he do it? 

Was he really that selfish?

“Vincenzo?”

“Shut up, goddamnit,” Vincenzo muttered, low but sternly.

Flavio flinched. He was used to his father talking to him like that; his mother, too, if she was in a bad mood, but never Vincenzo. “Christ, I’m only trying to help.”

“Why did I do it, Flavio?” Vincenzo asked angrily.

“Do what?”

“Why did I do it?” Vincenzo repeated, lifting his head from the desk and staring at his brother with empty eyes.

Flavio groaned. “It’s not your fault. It’s not like you could have stopped it.”

Vincenzo shook his head. “You don’t know that, and you don’t know me.”

“But Signor de Cicco does?” Flavio asked, releasing pent-up anger and jealousy he didn’t even know he had. “I’ve known you my whole life, but he knows you better than I do because he taught you how to think?”

Vincenzo whipped around to look at his brother in disbelief. “You shut your trap about Cosimo, alright? He’s dead, for all it’s worth! He’s going to fucking die, so you don’t need to worry about it anymore. Happy now? Just go to sleep already, you piece of shit!”

“You sound like Papá,” Flavio muttered, beginning to get ready for bed. 

There was no use arguing, he thought; Vincenzo felt bad enough already.

All through the night, Vincenzo laid awake, contemplating his next move until finally, he had a plan.

He crept out of the room with a candle and walked down the hall to his parents’ room, where he silently took his father’s suitcase. He then returned to his room, lit the candles in there so he could see, and began packing.

Flavio woke up and was, understandably, rather annoyed. “What are you doing?”

Vincenzo didn’t answer.

“Vinci, what’s going on?”

Vincenzo perked up, wondering if he should halt everything in its tracks. Flavio hadn’t called him Vinci in years, and the suddenness of it caught him off guard.

He shook his head and did not speak. 

“Come on.” Flavio continued. “I’m tired of this shit. You’re clearly keeping something from me, and whatever it is, you can get it off your chest now. You already told me you were in the resistance, so nothing you can say will surprise me.”

“Damnit, Flavio! The clues have been in front of you the whole time, and you’re _still_ too dumb to figure it out!” Vincenzo yelled, his fear masked by bitterness. There was a sour silence for a minute, and Vincenzo gave a sharp sigh. “I’m leaving, alright? I can’t stay here anymore.”

“What?”

“I’m leaving.”

Flavio stopped for a minute, trying to make sense of it all. You’re not going to New York, are you? You wouldn’t do that without me, right?”

Vincenzo didn’t answer.

Flavio glanced around the room, desperate.

“Tell me you won’t leave me here alone! I know you’re upset about Signor de Cicco, really I do but you can’t keep running away from every problem you don’t want to face!”

“God, don’t bring Cosimo into this,” Vincenzo muttered, stuffing a shirt into the suitcase.

“Why not? It would clearly do you some good to talk about it!”

Vincenzo tried to hide his emotion, though his voice still broke. “You want to know so badly? Alright! He’s dead because of me!”

“Vincenzo, look, I know that this is hard, but—”

“I killed him, goddamnit!”

“Get a grip! You’re going to wake up our parents.”

“I sentenced him to death to spare my own life. I’m the traitor, not him.”

Flavio’s stomach dropped, and he was hit with the sudden realization that Vincenzo might’ve done something terrible that night in the church, and he was gripped by the icy fear that he had been wrong in assuming that his brother was a double agent working in the resistance’s favor. “What?”

Vincenzo sat down on the bed and stared out the window, shaking his head. “I...I can’t keep living like this. Look, I did something awful, and everyone’s going to find out and call me a hero, whether they really think I am or not.”

Here he shook his head, tears forming in his eyes. “But I’m not a hero, dammit! I’m a fool. I’m a fool; I’ve always been a fool, and I gave in to what has always been man’s greatest fear: death. I didn’t want to die, so I let Cosimo, and the guilt will eat me alive if I don’t leave.”

“You told him!”

“What?”

“When you were in the church that night in La Spezia, you were telling him about the resistance, weren’t you?”

A look of confusion grew on Vincenzo’s face. “How did you—”

“To think I looked up to you! You’re killing innocent people! De Cicco, the Jews, the gypsies, whoever the hell it is the Germans are taking! They didn’t do anything wrong, and here you are helping to kill them!”

“Flavio, that isn’t what I did!”

“I thought I could trust you! I got so close to telling you everything, goddamnit! Those nights on the rooftop, all those times you stuck up for me, didn’t they mean anything?”

“Flavio—”

“Get out, you bastard! Go to New York, go to London, go to hell for all I care!”

Vincenzo took a breath, stood up and quickly finished packing his things before silently leaving the room.

“Some brother you are!” Flavio called after him, hearing the front door slam shut.

He sat there for a long time, too shocked to move. If only he hadn’t been so blinded by his emotions, he thought, Vincenzo wouldn’t have left. He could have convinced him to stay. Why hadn’t he?

The room felt colder, emptier.

It wasn’t safe anymore. 

In the span of minutes, it had become a war zone, and there was no real winner. Flavio thought about that, wondering then if there was ever a real winner; even daring to wonder if the war was being fought for nothing.

Just then, something black left on the nightstand caught his eye. He picked it up, noticing for the first time how heavy it actually was.

He ran his fingers along the gold lettering on the cover. 

_The Best Loved Poems of the American People_. It was such a strange, alien name, almost intimidating in a way, and Flavio couldn’t understand it if he tried.

But it had been Vincenzo’s, in better times, and at the time, that was all that really mattered, so Flavio held the book tight against his chest and collapsed against the mattress, falling into a fickle, dreamless sleep.

Just that morning, Vincenzo had cut his hair.

It was almost too much to believe.


	24. Ventriquattro

November fifth, 1943.

It was a cold, gray day in La Spezia.

Lieutenant Novak Engel, with his right hand tightly bandaged, stumbled into the bar where all his friends were so that they could all drink to another dead traitor.

“ _Mein Gott_ , what happened to ol’ Lieutenant Engel here?” asked a commander.

“That resistance asshole got mad that he gave me information and started yelling at me, and finally he went and slashed my hand open! I would’ve done the same to him, maybe worse, but he ran off too fast.”

“Execution’s today.”

“Who’s all getting hanged?” Novak asked, sitting down.

“That old southern cunt, some gypsy whore, and some little lesbian-looking thing.”

“Good riddance. Our job will be easier without them nagging us.”

Novak shook his head, and he lit a cigarette. “I suppose we’ve all heard now that they’re keeping us here?”

“Of course we have; where have you been, Engel?”

“Where do you keep running off to at night, Engel?”

“None of your business,” Novak said, smirking. The other soldiers ooed among themselves.

“Keep her out of trouble, you hear? We don’t need another war-bastard.”

Novak almost laughed. “Believe me, she won’t be pregnant anytime soon.”

A young, inexperienced soldier, fresh out of Gymnasium, pondered Novak’s situation. “If there’s anything good about us having to stay here, it’s that. We’re not doing well right now, but as long as Lieutenant gets to see his girl, I’ve got a little hope.”

Novak smiled. 

“To Germany!” One man yelled, drunkenly raising his glass. 

They all laughed and toasted, knowing full-well that in just an hour or so, they would witness the life leave four people’s faces.

At 2:00, Cosimo was led out of the prison by two guards. He had given it some thought, being the philosopher he was, and decided he was only afraid of what might happen to his family, Vincenzo included.

Speaking of his family, Cosimo broke down when he saw them. 

He wept for Valencia, the woman he’d loved so dearly and would hate to leave behind.

He wept for Luisa, his child he’d never see grow up.

And though he was long gone by then, he wept for Vincenzo, his unknown traitor, knowing he couldn’t possibly be taking the news well.

How Cosimo longed to talk to him, to tell him that he loved him like a son, to tell him it was going to be alright.

Instead, Vincenzo was nowhere, and Cosimo was led to the gallows, relieved that at least he would die knowing that boy was safe.

The whole town had showed up for the occasion. Seeing one of their own get hanged for treason was better than doing nothing, after all.

Valencia stood wailing like a madwoman, wondering if she could have somehow prevented it all.

Flavio stood in his brother’s place, still holding the book he’d left behind.

Marcello stood next to his mother, wondering if he’d ever be brave enough to do what Cosimo had done.

Luisa stared at one of the soldiers, wondering why she vaguely recognized him.

Novak stood next to the gallows, ready to see the whole thing end and get back to the bar. “Last words,” he told the convicts. “You have three minutes.”

Cosimo suddenly realized he, of all people, had not thought of his last words beforehand. He needed to say something meaningful, if his life was going to be worth anything. He could think of nothing, thought he tearfully remembered a night at the opera, watching one man face near certain death, one that could be prevented if only his name was unknown. 

Even all those years ago, the piece had stirred something in him, and many times since then, he had found himself muttering the lyrics to himself, smiling slightly in pleasure whenever it came on the radio. 

He had memorized every word.

Cosimo cleared his throat, deciding to ignore the opening lines, and the murmur of the crowd hushed. “ _Tu pure, o Principessa, nella tua fredda stanza..._ ” he began, barely choking out the words as he remembered the warmth of Valencia’s hand in his, the glaring stage lights illuminating Calaf’s face.

The crowd, save Cosimo’s family, looked at each other in confusion. Where was the princess? And the cold room? Had this socratic philosopher become Diogenes?

_Puccini,_ Valencia thought. _He’s speaking the words to_ Nessun Dorma.

Luisa began to cry, leaning her head on her mother’s shoulder.

“ _Guardi la stelle che tremano_ _d'amore e di speranza_ . _Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me_ …” Here, Cosimo raised his voice almost bitterly, realizing the meaninglessness of it all, no matter what he said. “ _Il nome mio nessun saprà_ ! _No, No! Sulla tua bocca, lo dirò quando la luce splenderà!_ ” As his tears blurred his vision, he turned to look at Valencia and continued. “ _Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio che ti fa mia_!”

Valencia pressed her hand to her chest, clutching her necklace.

“ _Dilegua, o notte_ ! _Tramontate, stelle_ ! _Tramontate, stelle_ ! _All'alba, vincerò_ !” He looked up at the sky, already empty of its stars, knowing it would be the last thing he’d ever see. “ _Vincerò_...”

 _Vincerò_. I will win.

Cosimo tearfully closed his eyes, bowed his head, and was silent. The stool was kicked from underneath him, and the philosopher’s head fell limp under the rope.


	25. Venticinque

**Part Five**

**November 1943**

On Saturday morning, the day after the execution, there was a knock at the Aiello’s door. Giulia Aiello answered, her fake blonde hair still in rollers from the night before. 

“Hello?” she asked, looking down at a dark-skinned teenager. “What do you want?” 

Marcello cringed slightly at the shrillness of her voice. “Is Flavio home?”

“Yeah. What’s it to you?”

"I’d like to talk to him, ma’am.”

“Hm. Guess I’ll go get him, then,” Giulia said, clearly dissatisfied with her son’s choice in friends. She turned to the stairway. “Flavio! What’s-her-name Oliveri’s son is here to see you! You keep an eye on him; make sure he doesn’t steal anything, alright?”

Giulia returned to the kitchen as Flavio came down, and the two boys greeted each other and stood awkwardly, one in the house, one on the front stairs.

“You look dead,” Marcello muttered.

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“I can see…” There was a pause. “Are you alright? You haven’t gone to school at all for the past two days, and I know you’re not sick because you were at the…” he hesitated, and cleared his throat, unsure of what to call it. “the...event yesterday.”

Flavio sighed and leaned against the wall, gesturing with his hand. “Come inside, Marcello.”

The two of them went into Flavio’s (and formerly Vincenzo’s) room and began to talk. Giulia glanced at the ceiling in suspicion as they went up the stairs, but shrugged and muttered as she peeled potatoes.

Marcello leaned against the wall. “Where’s Vincenzo? People have been saying he dropped out of school.”

“He ran away,” Flavio said nonchalantly.

Marcello’s eyes widened. “He what?”

“He ran away, Marcello. He kept yelling that he did something awful, started packing his bags, and now he’s gone.”

“Well, where did he go?”

Flavio took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, taking a drag before speaking. “No clue. I think he wants to go to New York, but he doesn’t have the money. I don’t think the government would let him go either, but who knows at this point. The whole world’s upside down; he just might get to London.”

Marcello was speechless. “ _Mio Dio_. I’m so sorry to hear that. Are you getting along alright without him?”

Flavio shook his head. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m really fine.” 

There was a silence, and Marcello awkwardly moved his gaze from Flavio’s eyes to the white stone wall. “What was it that he did? If you don’t mind my asking, of course. Signora Bianchi says that she heard that he was a spy for the resistance and that he got Signor de Cicco’s trust to turn him in.”

Flavio sat down on the bed and stared out the window, trying to keep his expression neutral. “He kind of did.”

Marcello gasped softly. “Oh my God. Is that really what the world’s coming to?”

“I don’t know, dammit! I don’t know much about it. Vincenzo was—” Flavio grunted. “He is—anti-Fascist, and he would have never joined the resistance just to get de Cicco arrested.”

“But why did he turn him in?”

“I don’t know!”

Marcello walked to the bed and tried to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, but Flavio swatted him off angrily and continued, blowing smoke towards the window.

“God knows where he is now! Hell, he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get himself shot!” 

Flavio felt a sudden emptiness swell up inside him as he wished Marcello would try to comfort him again; a sudden hunger for something few had ever given him.

Vincenzo, the one to whom he told everything, the only one who cared for him, _about_ him, was gone, and for all he knew, he would never come back.

He had to find someone else to fill that void. Looking at Marcello at that moment, knowing he’d be there for him, Flavio felt something strong pulling him towards Marcello; something that was different from what he felt in the church.

He turned to look at him, then stood up and hugged him, trying not to be so weak as to cry into someone’s shoulder.


	26. Ventisei

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where some of the triggering topics come into play. I do not condone these types of relationships, and the only reason it sounds so romanticized is because Luisa, the hopeless romantic, perceives it to be a wonderful sort of thing. It is my job, as a writer, to let the readers know how the characters feel about the situations they’re in, and this is how the situation feels to Luisa. If you for whatever reason are uncomfortable with these interactions between a 28 year old man and a 16 year old girl (I’ll admit, I was writing them) feel no pressure to continue reading, as this will come up frequently through the rest of the work as a major component to the story.
> 
> No, I do not condone relationships between grown men and minors. What I do condone is telling this story, and I apologize sincerely for any nauseating feelings/uncomfort this part may cause should you decide to continue.
> 
> Tl;dr-Underage from this point on.  
> Peace be with y’all.

It was a long time before Luisa was in any state to sneak out to the woods again. When she finally did, the weather had gotten considerably colder, and she had to bring her jacket with her to keep herself from freezing to death. It would ruin the effect of the dress, and she knew it, but all is fair in love, war, and the November rain. 

She changed in the woods, like normal, and waited anxiously for around ten minutes to see if Novak would come. She would not mind if he didn’t show; she had a million little thoughts to keep her entertained. Though, to her surprise and delight, Novak could not sleep that night either. 

“Good evening,” he greeted, smiling warmly.

Luisa blushed at the handsome sight of him and waved.

“Where have you been?” he asked. “I kept trying to come, hoping you’d be here, but you never were.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I would’ve come more often, but there was...some stuff going on at home.”

“Are you alright?” Novak asked, genuinely concerned for the girl’s wellbeing. 

“What? Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just—” Luisa shook her head, not entirely willing to tell the story. “My father died. Ever since then it’s been rough. And even before that, something would always happen with my mother where she’d get upset…”

Novak nodded silently, wishing he could help. “I’m quite sorry to hear that. Now, I don’t want to sound nosy or anything, but what happened to him?”

Luisa was unsure how to answer, and Novak thought for a moment, looking into Luisa’s eyes and remembering some face. “Wait a minute, what did you say your last name was?”

“De Cicco,” she replied nervously. 

Novak’s eyes widened, and he combed his hand through his hair in surprise. “ _Jesus, Maria und Josef_ ! Luisa, I’m so sorry. I was only doing my job! if I had known—”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. He was a traitor, right?”

“Well, yes, but I just—”

Luisa groaned. “God, what does it matter if he was? I had no idea he was doing all of that!” she lied, feeling disgusted by it. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes until Luisa sighed and continued. “Maybe we should stop meeting like this.”

Novak went pale. “What?”

“I mean, I don’t know if I can keep…” she swallowed. “if I can keep doing this knowing that you were there…”

“No, like I said. I didn’t want to in the first place. If I had any idea that he was your—”

“Just forget I said anything.”

“No, really.”

“It’s _fine_ , Novak! You’re the only person who knows who I am, who I _really_ am, and I can’t lose that.”

Novak sighed and crushed a cigarette butt under his heel. “If you feel that way, then I suppose we’ll continue our friendship, regardless of the circumstances.” 

Luisa nodded wordlessly.

Novak sat down on an old stump, and Luisa, unwilling to stand still and think about her father, sat at the foot of it and crossed her arms, hoping to distract herself. 

Novak looked down at her legs. “You really are beautiful. I guess you know that, though, else you wouldn’t bother dressing so nicely.”

Luisa laughed sarcastically and tried to hide her smile. “If you insist…”

Novak looked around, confused. “What? What could possibly be so bad about you?”

“Well, my legs are too hairy, my voice is too deep, my face is too stubbly, my chest is too flat...it’s more than I can bear sometimes, but then again, what did I expect?”

“You might feel that way, my dear, but I don’t care.” There was a pause, and Novak debated whether or not to continue. “In fact, I almost wish you didn’t cover yourself up so much,” 

Luisa’s stomach fluttered as she noticed the mischievous smirk on the soldier’s face, and she was unsure of how to respond, so she just thanked him and reciprocated his compliment. “You’re handsome, too, you know that? And you have beautiful eyes.” 

Luisa sat up more to look at those eyes, though while rising, she noticed the bandages on Novak’s right hand. “What happened here?”

Novak looked down at the clump of white cloth. “Oh, that? Some resistance bastard got mad at me and cut me with a pocketknife.”

Resistance. Luisa tried to erase the association from her mind, but was unable to. “Is it going to leave a scar?”

“Yes, probably. It’s not a big deal, though. A nice battle wound to show the girls back home.”

“No, it’s awful!” Luisa cried, surprising herself. 

Novak looked at her strangely.

“It’s like ever since my father died everybody’s gone and turned on each other! There’s this crazy old Mussolini fanatic in town, Signora Palminteri, and she keeps saying that she’s going to come into my house and light it on fire! ‘Like cockroaches:’ she says, ‘where there’s one, there’s always more hiding closeby.’”

“Don’t listen to crazy old ladies, Luisa. The police proved you innocent, didn’t they?”

“Still!” 

A thought dawned on Luisa. “Do you know who tipped off the police? Everyone’s saying it’s this guy my father was close with, but I don’t want to buy it.”

Novak thought of Vincenzo’s confession in the church. “What was his name?”

“Vincenzo Aiello.”

Novak decided to lie, unwilling to upset Luisa. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Who else could it have been, though? Are you sure it wasn’t him? He’s tall, and skinny, and—”

“I’m sure, Luisa. Look, it’s alright. We won’t talk about it anymore. What kind of music do you like?”

Luisa thought for a minute, trying to calm herself down and accept the change of subject. Finally, she took a breath and spoke. “Well, my mother loves opera, so I grew up hearing it. She’s trained in Bel Canto, and she used to perform in concert halls and theatres, but she stopped after getting pregnant with me. Personally though, I’m a jazz fan, or at least, a Rabagliati fan. What about you?”

Novak grunted. “No jazz for me. We don’t listen to it in Germany.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was created by American Negroes,” Novak began with not exactly anger in his voice, but a certain sternness. “And now with that Django Reinhardt guy, it’s taking over Europe! Too non-Aryan for our tastes, not to mention that it sounds like shit. But other than that, I don’t really like or dislike any specific music.”

“Such strong feelings,” Luisa said, shaking her head and pretending she was wise. “You just need to hear the right song, and then you can get into it.” 

There was silence for a moment. Luisa found that silence was often what prompted her to speak the most, and she continued, changing the topic once more. “You know, I like your accent. It was a little scary at first; I mean, given the circumstances we met under, any voice would be scary, but once you really hear the accent, it’s just so...captivating.”

“I always thought Italian was very beautiful. It flows so nicely. That’s why I decided to learn it.”

“Your Italian is surprisingly good for a German. I bet you know other languages, too.”

Novak laughed. “No, not really, except for a little French from my time in Fontainebleau. What about you?”

“Besides the Latin we’re learning in school, just Italian. But I guess if you wanted to, you could teach me how to say a few things in German.

Novak nodded and lit a cigarette, looking out at the distance and smiling slightly. “ _Ich liebe dich_.”

“What does it mean?”

He turned to Luisa, taking a drag on the cigarette. “ _Ich werde es nicht sagen. Zumindest noch nicht._ ”

“Come on, you know I don’t speak German!” Luisa retorted, playfully hitting Novak on the arm. He sighed, pretending to be frustrated, and decided to give in.

“I won’t say what it means. Not yet.”

“Come on, you wimp!”

Novak laughed. Luisa tried to hide her smile at the sound of it. “Alright. _Ich liebe dich_ means I love you.”

Luisa blushed, unsure of why just yet. “How do you say it?”

“ _Ich liebe dich_. Sort of like the ‘c’ sound in Italian. In the south, that is, where I’m from, but that’s a lesson for another time.”

“ _Ich liebe dich_ ,” Luisa repeated, looking down at her skirt and trying not to let Novak notice her rosy face. “Thank you. That’s so pretty.”

Novak snapped. “Which brings me to my next point. _Danke_. It’s not too hard for a native Italian speaker. It means ‘thank you’.” 

Luisa pulled her skirt up a little to avoid getting it dirty. There was no way she could ask Valencia to wash it without suspicion.

Novak watched. “You have nice legs. Heidelberg girls have nothing on you.”

Luisa felt a light feeling in her stomach, the same one she’d felt earlier. “Thanks, I guess.” 

She looked up at the moon, and realizing how far it had moved since her arrival, she abruptly stood up. “Shit. It’s later than I thought. I should get going.”

Novak grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

Luisa stopped and turned.

“Before you leave, I want to do something.”

“Just make it quick.”

Novak pulled Luisa close to him and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. Her face got hot, and she looked up at him after he had pulled away, disbelieving. “ _Ich liebe dich_ ,” Novak said.

“ _Danke_ ,” Luisa replied, almost too shocked to speak.

She turned and went home, both sickened at the thought that she might be turning into a homosexual and incredibly excited that finally, finally, someone loved her as the girl she was.


	27. Ventisette

Flavio was bored one rainy evening, and it suddenly dawned on him that despite keeping _The Best Loved Poems of the American People_ with him for so long, he had never opened the book, let alone try to read it. 

So he did just that, reading Vincenzo’s notes in the margins, starting with his translation of the title, and when Flavio got tired of that, he moved onto trying to read the poems out loud.

He opened to a random page and read (with terrible pronunciation):

_In Flanders fields the poppies blow_

_Between the crosses, row on row,_

_That mark our place; and in the sky_

_The larks, still bravely singing, fly_

_Scarce heard amid the guns below._

_We are the Dead. Short days ago_

_We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,_

_Loved, and were loved, and now we lie_

_In Flanders fields._

_Take up our quarrel with the foe:_

_To you from failing hands we throw_

_The torch; be yours to hold it high._

_If ye break faith with us who die_

_We shall not sleep, though poppies grow_

_In Flanders fields._

Flavio read through the margins, wondering if there was even a meaning to the ugly-looking words.

_In Flanders Fields (Nel campo del Fiandre), by John McCrae, written during the Great War. Maybe after. I have no idea. About all the dead buried in Flanders Fields in Belgium. Is it in Belgium? Hell, it might be France, I don’t know._

_Vocabulary:_

_  
Poppy: papvero _

_Torch: torcia_

_Larks: allodole_

Flavio, unable to read English, was left to wonder about the meaning of the poem based solely on those three words. He took out a seperate piece of paper, a pen, and decided to write down his own poem, in Italian of course.

_In Flanders Fields_

_(Rewritten by Flavio Aiello)_

_In Flanders Fields there are poppies_

_Glowing in the moonlight like a torch._

It was horrible, and he knew it, but something inside made him lose track and keep writing.

Suddenly, he was thinking of Vincenzo.

_There was a fire in his eyes the day before_

_Just like that goddamned torch._

_That smirk he had when he cut my hair,_

_The way he laughed that morning._

_I hadn’t seen him laugh like that since_

_He did what he must’ve done._   
  


_Whatever happened to that, damnit?_

It wasn’t perfect; in fact, he wasn’t sure it was even poetry, but Flavio felt the weight of his repressed emotions lift from his shoulders as soon as he took the pen off the paper.

For the first time since Vincenzo left, he cried.


	28. Ventotto

Luisa began meeting Novak every night at midnight in the woods. 

Ever since he had kissed her, confessed his love in that vague manner Luisa had interpreted to be youthful inexperience, she had been lovesick, to say the least. 

He took up her every waking thought, and with her house cold and empty, the best part of her day (or perhaps her night) was dressing herself up and just being with him.

It was something she would rather die than give up.

She desperately wanted to tell someone about it, to gush and gush about Novak until she had nothing left to say, but of course, she was smart enough not to. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she did.

Such was life.

Novak enjoyed seeing her too, and assured her that she wasn’t a homosexual. Neither of them were; they both thought of Luisa as a woman, and therefore, they were normal.

Since she always snuck out so late, Luisa began to lose sleep. She didn’t mind, thinking that it was only a small price to pay for something so wonderful. 

One night, she went to the woods as usual. She and Novak shot at the breeze for a while, and eventually, Novak invited her to sit on his lap.

She did so, her skin prickling at the feeling of her warm body in his cold arms, and the two continued to talk. 

“I think I might have seen you the day I came to this place.” Novak began. “At least, I think it was you. I always see you in that dress these days, but it looked enough like you for me to be fairly certain that it was.”

“Really? Where was I?”

“You were in the market in La Spezia with two boys, and one of them ran into me and swore at me in German.”

Luisa snapped, suddenly remembering that day. “Oh, yeah! Sorry about that, he can be a bit of a troublemaker when he gets bored. He loves to be the center of attention, that’s all.”

“I assume that your teacher’s always on his back, then?”

“The teacher? He’s on most of ours. Our class is just awful! Flavio and I are always causing trouble in one way or another, Paolo and his friends are always fighting Flavio and I, Liona’s always whispering to the girls, Francesca’s always passing notes to Agnese...we’re mostly alright when it comes to schoolwork, but behavior is a whole other thing!”

“I understand that. I remember when I was younger, we boys would all try to get each other to ask our sweethearts out to the pictures during lunch hour.”

“Did you ever do it?”

“Yes, I did, after much convincing and someone threatening to steal my lunch if I didn’t.”

“What did she say?”

“She agreed, to my surprise, and we began...what is it called? Dating?”

“You started going with her?”

“Yes, I suppose I did.”

“What was she like?” Luisa asked eagerly, blushing as she imagined a slightly younger Novak anxiously kissing a girl. 

“She was very pretty, but she acted like a slut half the time. Don’t you go flirting with anyone else like she did.”

“I kind of can’t, Novak. I’m friends with the girls, but I don’t think I’d have the guts to flirt with them, and if I try anything on a boy I’d get killed. What was the girl’s name?”

“It’s been a while; let me think.” Novak looked up at the sky, rooting through his mind for a name to match her face. “Helene. Helene Schneider.”

“I take it that the two of you aren’t together anymore?”

Novak scoffed. “Of course not. She was crazy. I mean just absolutely insane. She hit herself in the face with her father’s bible one day and told everyone at the school I did it. That was the end of things between us.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about me doing that!” The two laughed, and Novak put a hand on Luisa’s thigh. She felt light in the stomach again, and although she was somewhat uncomfortable, she nodded when he looked over to her for confirmation.

He kissed her again, rougher than he had the first time, and although she tried to pull away, he kept her in place.

She laughed uncomfortably before making up some excuse and leaving.

Novak grunted and returned to the barracks.


	29. Ventinove

Flavio and Luisa were waiting outside Signora Bianchi’s house for Marcello, the way that they always did. 

Luisa noticed as soon as she got there that Flavio, of all people, was carrying a book that he didn’t need for school, and naturally, she asked about it.

“Now what on earth is that?” 

“Some book of American poetry. Vincenzo forgot it when he left.” There was no need for Flavio to elaborate any further. Everyone in Cresto D’oro had heard about Vincenzo Aiello to some degree.

In fact, just a few days before, Valencia had heard from the women at the fountain that not only had Vincenzo possibly turned Cosimo into the police, but that he may have been a double agent, working for both the Germans and the resistance, and she had come home in tears and told the whole thing to Luisa.

Uncomfortable, Luisa changed the subject. “Well, what the hell are you reading it for? Have you gone crazy?”

“I just think English sounds funny. And I’m not kidding, either, just listen to this!” Flavio cleared his throat. “Ee wold ask off yo, me darling, a question dark and lo, tat givays may mahni a…” Here, he paused and squinted at the page, trying to figure out how to say the next word. “...hayartahkay...”

“Alright, alright, I’m convinced. For God’s sake, stop before we have to tie Odysseus to the mast!”

Flavio began to laugh, and Marcello came out of the house looking disheveled. “Gee, what happened to you?”

“I woke up around five and had too much on my mind to go back to sleep.”

Luisa nodded and the three began to walk. “Thinking about some girl, huh?” 

Flavio had to stifle the urge to laugh.

“Sort of,” Marcello muttered, sighing. “I’m getting married, apparently.”

Luisa stopped dead in her tracks and gasped. “You’re _what_? Oh my God, did you...you know…is she in trouble?”

Marcello looked back at her, surprised. “What? No! I’ve hardly even talked to her!”

Flavio interjected. “What do you mean you haven’t talked to her? Aren’t the two of you getting married?”

Marcello grunted and looked up at the sky. It was raining, and the cool grey droplets felt good against his face. “It’s tradition for the Sinti to marry young, and the weddings are usually arranged. I really don’t want to get married, and I’ve been holding it off for as long as I could, but my mom decided that I’m going to marry that bitch Agnese Fiorelli.”

“She’s really not bad,” Luisa began, feeling offended on Agnese’s behalf for the harsh language. “She’s a great listener if you’ve got something on your mind, and if the other girls get into a dispute, she’s always the one who settles it.”

“Still!”

“See, you’re giving in too easily.” Flavio scolded. “You don’t have to marry her; just tell your mom you won’t!”

“I can’t!"

"Why not? What’s she gonna do, stop you?”

“You know how she is! I can’t disappoint her!”

“Who cares if you disappoint her? This is _your_ life. She doesn’t control it!”

“It will be good for me.”

“So now you’re switching sides? What the hell do you mean, ‘it’ll be good for you’? You’re going to let her force you into a marriage you don’t want to be in at sixteen fucking years old and say it’s good for you?”

“I don’t have the option of fighting her!”

Flavio groaned. “Marcello, look. You told me once that you don’t fight because it’s better to be treated like shit than bust your ass trying to get respect. Well guess what? None of it is fucking true. If you bust your ass getting respect, at least you leave with your pride! At least then you know that you were right!

But if you keep letting people kick you every which way, you’re a coward. You’re so scared of the consequences of standing up for yourself that you don’t even try! It’s fucking ridiculous! You’re a coward, Marcello, and I hate to say it, but it’s true!

So stand up for yourself, please, or you’re going to end up like Vincenzo. He let both sides pull him towards them until it tore him in half.” Flavio’s voice broke. “I can’t, I _won’t_ , let you live like that.”

Marcello had no reply.


	30. Trenta

Valencia woke with a start. She had dreamed of Cosimo again, and she saw him in the town square about to be beheaded by Princess Turandot after giving the wrong answer to her final riddle.

It sickened her to wake up staring at a side of the bed that would remain empty as long as she lived. 

She felt like crying, and she shook so hard that she thought it was going to be impossible for her not to cry herself dry again.

Shaking away the tears, Valencia lit a candle and walked over to the dresser, where she looked at their wedding photo.

She didn’t need to light the candle; she could see Cosimo clear in her mind. She was thinking about his image when it suddenly dawned on her that Luisa bore a striking resemblance.

Acting on an impulse, she took the candle and walked down the hall, quietly opening Luisa’s door, ready to see her and be somewhat comforted.

To Valencia’s horror, no one was there. 

She began to think of all the awful things it could mean. She’d run away like Vincenzo had. No, someone had taken her. Someone had killed her for being a traitor’s daughter. No, she had gotten into trouble with the police.

She heard footsteps from the living room and ran down the hall so fast she almost tripped. “Roma? Roma, where are you? Are you alright?”

Luisa flinched hard and turned around, standing face to face with her mother. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

It was a damn good thing she’d bundled up the dress and hidden it in her jacket, and at the moment, she held onto the spot where it was like she would die if she didn’t.

Valencia ran up to Luisa and hugged her before looking her dead in the eyes. “Are you alright? Why is your jacket on? Why aren’t you in your room? Are you going somewhere? Where are you going?”

“I…” Luisa stammered. “I was cold, so I came down here to get my jacket.”

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Valencia repeated sternly.

“I know, Mamma. I was cold, though, and I just thought I’d—”

Valencia hugged Luisa again and patted her back. “Go to bed, Roma. You’re going to be alright.”

Luisa nodded slowly and returned to her room, puzzled by the strange way her mother had acted. She was used to Valencia being protective of her, but there was always a motherly sternness to it. Luisa would come home late and be scolded, not squeezed to death. 

She shook it off.


	31. Trentuno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abusive relationship warning from this point on.

That weekend, Flavio, Marcello, and Luisa were in La Rosa Grigia. They had put the argument Marcello had had with Flavio behind them and were acting the same as always.

Since then, they had decided that without Vincenzo there to play the piano, the tavern was too quiet, and they had Marcello bring his father’s old mandolin with him.

Of course, they didn’t mention Vincenzo’s name, for fear of making someone upset. They simply said that the tavern was too quiet and pressured Marcello into bringing the mandolin.

“I don’t really know that much,” he said. “Other than some Sinti folk songs my father taught me, a few Italian songs here and there; I’ve tried to learn a few things by Django Reinhardt, but I’m not good at them. That man is crazy, I tell you what.”

“Go with Django. You can never go wrong with Django,” Flavio said.

“I think you’ll be proven wrong...”

“Don’t play them,” Luisa argued absentmindedly, looking at the piano. “There are Germans here, and they don’t like jazz that much.”

“Since when do you know about German music taste?” Flavio asked.

_Shit_. Luisa thought. “I mean, I just thought...it’s so non-Aryan. They probably wouldn’t like it.”

“What’s the worst they could do? Get Marcello arrested?”

“No, it’s alright. You _really_ didn’t want to hear me try to play jazz, and I wanted to play the Italian stuff anyway.”

Marcello began to play the music, humming a little harmony now and then while staring down at his fingers. His uncle Sebastiano, who ran the tavern, listened drunkenly. Flavio, on the other hand, listened intently, hoping to hear just a little bit of Marcello’s voice. 

They stayed there for an hour or so before leaving. Luisa was walking home, whistling softly, when she heard someone behind her. She turned around, and was surprised to see Novak.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she greeted.

“Where were you?” Novak asked angrily.

“What?”

“Where the hell were you last night?”

“I couldn’t go, okay? My mom caught me sneaking out.”

“Look, Luisa, I’m not going to have you avoid me like this!”

“Don’t be so loud. Someone’s bound to hear you. There’s no reason to get so angry, anyways! We didn’t see each other for almost two weeks after everything that happened with my father, and you were fine then! Why is it different now?”

“Because now I love you! You’re coming to see me tonight, and that’s final!”

“Not if you’re going to act like this!”

In a fit of anger, Novak brought his hand hard across Luisa’s face. Time froze as she gave a low, guttural groan and reeled backwards, frantically wondering how Novak had brought himself to hitting her and what she had said to make him so angry.

“I expect to see you tonight at the usual time. If you don’t come, I’ll get you myself.”

Novak left Luisa standing there in horror.

She couldn’t believe it. This man she loved so fiercely had hit her. He hit her on purpose and with the intention of punishing her, and he didn’t seem to regret it. They would talk about it tonight, she decided, and she would knock some sense into him.

She went and met him at midnight, wearing the dress again, already preparing a speech on respecting her. 

Novak acted like nothing had happened between them, all smiling and flattering her, kissing her cheek and praising her. Surprised, but hopelessly romantic still, she concluded that he had simply been irrationally angry earlier, and that he was avoiding bringing it up because he felt unspeakably bad about it.

And even if he didn’t feel bad, she thought bitterly, she might never find a love like his again. 

“You’ve been wearing that same dress this whole time, haven’t you?” Novak asked at one point in the night.

“It’s not like I have other dresses. My mother was going to sell this one; it hasn’t fit her for years. I just had to take the opportunity to take it, and I’m glad I did. I’ve never felt better about myself than I have in this.”

“I could buy you a new dress, you know.” Novak offered. 

Luisa was surprised, and wanted to say yes, but she humbly shook her head. “You really don’t have to do that.”

“No, I want to. It wouldn’t be a problem at all. What color do you like?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, now what color do you like?”

Luisa thought for a moment. “I always thought I looked good in white.”

For the rest of the night, there were no violent or vaguely sexual incidents, and when Luisa returned home, she was giddy with the thought of the dress she would soon have.


	32. Trentadue

Ever since writing the poem, Flavio had gone a long time trying his best to avoid thinking of Vincenzo. He was a traitor, he was a liar, and he was dead for all Flavio cared.

This little game of pretend came to a screeching halt when Flavio went to the post office to pick something up for his mother and was told he received a letter from his brother.

Surprised, he went back home, hiding the letter in his jacket pocket, and ran into his room to read it.

_20 November, 1943_

_Flavio,_

_I guess I ought to start by saying I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run away, and I know that now, but it’s going to be a long time before I come back, if I ever do._

_I was awful to everyone, and I can hardly bear to think about it, so don’t you go talking about it to anyone, alright?_

_I do want to know, though, have people figured it out?_

_After I left, I took the money I had left with and got on the train and headed to Genoa. I wanted to go to New York, but it would look suspicious, and besides, I don’t have the money.I’m living in an apartment now and don’t have a job, but there’s a bar I play piano in sometimes. People give me a few lire, and I get by, but there’s not much food to be found._

_I realized I forgot a lot of stuff when I left in such a hurry, but like I said, I don’t know if or when I’ll be coming back._

_How are you?_

_Vincenzo Aiello_

_263 Usignolo Boulevard, Apartment C_

_Genoa_

Flavio was dumbfounded.

Not only was Vincenzo alive, but he was doing somewhat-decent in a city that had a name for itself.

He didn’t deserve it.

Surely, he didn’t deserve it!

But there he was, writing letters and playing piano.

I suppose you can’t always get what you want.

Flavio sat for a long time on his bed, not moving, wondering what to do. He felt compelled to respond, and though his will to make Vincenzo suffer was strong, his loneliness was stronger, and before he knew it, Flavio was sitting at the desk writing a reply. 

It was not exactly a nice one, nor did it express his desperate want for Vincenzo’s return, but a letter it was indeed.

_22 November_

_Vincenzo,_

_First of all, what the actual fuck???_

_I just can’t fucking process this. You’re ALIVE. Nobody’s shot you through the head yet! How the fuck is that possible?_

_You know, I’m just peachy, what with you leaving us all in the dust! You’re not coming back, like you said, and you’re certainly not getting your stuff back. I’ve got the urge to burn it all, and Cresto D’oro with it. The fire will spread all the way to Genoa, and you’ll choke to death on the smoke, you bastard!_

_Of course everyone’s figured it out! Signora de Cicco refuses to talk to me, and Roma seems kind of wary of it. So are you happy yet? Are you fucking happy?_

_Fuck you,_

_Flavio Aiello_

Four days later, Vincenzo received this letter, read it, nodded his head, and though he would normally laugh at it, he felt the pain of his brother’s words cut through him.

Promptly shaking off that sinking feeling and putting on something of a mask for Flavio, he wrote a reply:

  
  


_26 November_

_Hey, hey, I get it, I’m an asshole! There’s no point being so mean about it!_

_I understand you completely._

_I’m not myself; I haven’t been myself, and I hate it. But then again, what did I expect? I need a change of scene. I need to leave, or I’ll suffocate without you starting a fire! Already I’m thinking of leaving Genoa for New York._

_And I know, I know, I left most of my money in Cresto D’oro under the bed. If you haven’t burned it all by now, see how much is in there and tell me.If not, then I suppose you can watch your poor brother hear a bomb alarm too late and get blown to pieces._

_(Oh, and wish me a happy birthday)_

_Vincenzo Aiello_

  
_That bitch_ , Flavio thought as he counted the money.


	33. Trentatre

The day after Flavio received that second letter, he was sitting with Marcello in Signora Bianchi’s hayloft.

Flavio was smoking while reading from _The Best Loved Poems of the American People_ and Marcello was laughing at his garbled attempts to speak English.

“...and then, in the margins, it’s translated like this: ‘All paths lead to you, wherever I stray. You are the evening star at the end of the day…”

“That’s beautiful.”

“I guess it is; I just wish I knew how to read it right. The things these poets are trying to get at aren’t half bad, and it probably sounds better in English, anyway.”

“Read some Italian poems, then! Dante, Petrarca, all of those guys!”

“I don’t want to read ancient stuff!”

Marcello laughed and shook his head. “I still can’t wrap my head around a tough guy like you having a soft spot for poetry.”

“I don’t! I just like it! Remember a few days ago when we read that one in school? _Il Lampo_? Weird as it is to say, I actually liked it! It’s like…” He shook his head. “I saw it as less of a chore and more of an art. I don’t know why.”

“That’s great!”

“Well, yeah, but I’m supposed to be tough, aren’t I?”

Marcello nodded, remembering that out of the three of them, that is, him, Flavio, and Luisa, Flavio had always been the one that would start the fight, talk back to the teacher, steal the cigarettes. “I’m not like I’m saying you’re not. Poetry lovers can be tough.”

Flavio turned and looked Marcello dead in the eyes, blowing some smoke in his face. “Name one tough poetry lover, I dare you.”

“Shakespeare,” Marcello answered with utmost sincerity and confidence, though he had never read any of Shakespeare’s works. 

Flavio burst out laughing, and Marcello felt his ears redden. “Shakespeare? _Shakespeare_? What, with that frilly collar? He looks like a goddamn pansy!”

Marcello let out a short, frustrated breath. “Well, I’m sure people will be saying that about us in three hundred years. It’s all relative to time, you know.”

Flavio gradually stopped laughing and began scratching at the wood beneath him with an old coin. A thought struck him, and he looked up. “What do you think people think about us, Marcello? Maybe not three hundred years from now, but, I don’t know, fifty?”

“I just hope they realize Fascism is a shitty idea and it doesn’t work.” There was a pause, and Marcello looked up at Flavio for confirmation. “You won’t tell anyone that I said that, will you?”

Flavio shook his head. “No. If I’m able to tell you about Vincenzo, you can tell me that.”

“You’re too good…” Marcello sighed, leaning against the wall.

“I’m just doing what you did to me.”

“No, it’s more than that. You’re really a good guy. God knows we’re running out of those these days.” There was another pause. “Do you think I could tell something like that to Roma? Not about politics, but do you think he would keep a secret that big?

“I think he’d try. It’s just a matter of whether or not he’d accidentally tell the girls!”

Both of them laughed for a little, then Marcello cleared his throat and spoke again.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Roma, but I’d just like to say that we’re good for each other. It sounds stupid, I know, but you pull me out of my shell, and I—”

“You’ve kept me sane for a while now,” Flavio said, feeling comfortable. 

“Don’t go saying that.”

“It’s true, though. Now more than ever, I think, what with Vincenzo gone and everything. Thanks for that; it’s more than you have to do.” They were silent again, and Marcello felt a warm feeling spread over him as he thought of Flavio liking him and genuinely enjoying his company. 

Flavio’s brow furrowed.

“Is something wrong?” Marcello asked.

He took a drag on the cigarette. “You’re really getting married, aren’t you?”

The warm feeling gave way to sinking dread, and Marcello looked the other direction, focusing on the old wood of the barn. “If all goes well, her father and my mother will agree on the dowry, since my father’s dead, and have a Plotchka, which is a bit like an engagement party where everyone gets to drink. There’s no stopping it after that, as far as I’m concerned. My mother’s bent on me getting married, so there’s not much I can do.”

“You let her control you too much.”

“I know, I know, and I wish there was something I could do.”

“Well, there is! It’s called standing up for yourself!”

“Flavio, we’ve been over this. I can’t do that to her!”

“So you want to get married, then?”

“No, not in the slightest!” Marcello tried to hide the tears forming in his eyes, but Flavio noticed and suddenly felt bad for speaking so bluntly. “I don’t want to! I’m never going to want to!”

“Hey, I’m sorry…” Flavio said, patting his back. “I know. I’m real sorry.” He wished more than anything that Marcello would tell him _why_ he didn’t want to get married. He was sure Marcello was the same way he was—the night in the church had proved it—but hearing him say it out loud, hearing someone talk about it with no desperate hush in their voice, would be unimaginably incredible to him. 

He looked around and shook his head. “Dammit. We really oughta get out of here, don’t we?”

“We’re sixteen and all alone. Where the hell would we even go?”

“Vincenzo’s in Genoa.”

“Why would you want to go _there_ , of all places?”

Flavio blushed, embarrassed. “I don’t know, it’s just a nice thought; a fantasy, I guess.”

“We don’t belong there,” Marcello said, the weight of the truth crushing both of them. “I didn’t, and you wouldn’t. We don’t belong anywhere, because we’re all alone in this goddamn world!”

“Come on, don’t talk like that. We’re young, and we got the rest of our lives ahead of us. There’s no use in giving up now.”

“It’s hard not to, once you wake up and see what’s going on around you! I mean, look at what’s happening! People are dying. People in Germany are disappearing at the drop of a hat. Hell, the Nazis are taking just about anyone who doesn’t hold a coffee cup the same way they do! It’s easier just to keep your head down and pray they don’t find you.”  
  
“I don’t want to live like that.”

“You think I do?” Marcello asked, the volume of his voice rising. “You think I wanted to come out of the library back in Genoa and be scared cause I was all alone and didn’t have anything to defend myself with? Do you really think I want to see the boys steal my books just to make me steal them back?”

Flavio could say nothing more, and quite frankly, was frightened, so instead of replying, he leaned his head on Marcello’s shoulder, seeing that Flavio would always have his shoulder to lean on, and there the two of them sat as the world around them lost its mind.


	34. Trentaquattro

If Vincenzo was no one before, he was nothing in Genoa, and he certainly wasn’t half as well as he wrote in his letters.

He was starving all through the day, the bomb sirens screeched all through the night, nothing he did gave him any satisfaction, and most of all, he was haunted by Cosimo.

In every waking moment, he saw him. He saw the wild, desperate look in his eyes as he was led out of the classroom that day. He would be walking to a bar and suddenly hear the laugh that had filled up the room what seemed like ages ago, and Vincenzo would break even further into pieces, into a shadow of the shadow of the man he had always been.

A full month had hardly passed since the execution, and it seemed that it had gone by in both a minute and an eternity. 

It was true when he told Flavio that he was playing the piano in a bar. He played Friday and Saturday nights at The Pearl Inn; it was something that would get him by and keep him distracted. Even that stopped after a while though; the manager thought the music he played had gotten too upsetting for a bar, and thus he told Vincenzo that he was free to play somewhere else.

If the music had changed, Vincenzo hadn’t noticed. Any music, even the happy kind, had begun to sound different to him, less colorful, less soulful, even though he had played the pieces thousands of times before, even though they had sounded fine before.

He wrote quite a few letters to Flavio, more than he really cared to send, actually. It’s important to note that he only ever wrote to his brother, never to his parents. They could burn in hell for all he cared. 

He laid awake at night, worrying Flavio would never forgive him, but then again, he knew he’d never forgive himself.

It was all funny, in some twisted way; His whole life, Vincenzo had wanted to get away from Cresto D’oro. Now he was in Genoa, a city he would have normally loved, a city he would have been able to wander for hours, and yet he hated every minute of it.

One night, his emotions flooded over him and he knew he would do something crazy if he didn’t do something, anything, to distract himself, so he wrote another letter, and this time, he ran all the way to the post office to send it.

_29 November, 1943_

_Flavio,_

_I know you might not ever forgive me, and I’ve accepted that by now, but please, I have one goal in this life, and it’s to get to New York._

_I’ll never survive there on my own. There’s too much for me happening right now for that. I’m going crazy here, and I worry that the same thing would happen in New York if I went alone._

_I’m going there. I’m going to go there, dammit. And you said on the rooftop once that if I went, you would come with me._

_So what do you say?_

Flavio was shocked to receive such a desperate letter from his normally stoic, sarcastic brother. It filled him with a sense of duty, a desire to keep Vincenzo sane, the same way Marcello did for him.

After taking the whole day to think about it, Flavio wrote a reply.  
  


_I don’t know._

_I’m sorry, I just don’ t know if I could leave everything behind. Everything I’ve ever known is in this blasted town. I have no idea what America is like. I have no idea how to speak English._

_But then again, you’ll be there, so maybe, just maybe, it might be worth a shot._


	35. Trentacinque

Luisa was getting more frightened of Novak as the winter days went by, each one slower and more grey than the last.

In the time that had passed, he had gotten so demanding, asking her to get closer and closer to him. She tried not to mind, but every time he clutched her hard against himself and moaned into her shoulder, she couldn’t help but feel sick to her stomach.

One night, he finally asked her to sleep with her. Luisa felt bile rise up in her throat, and she couldn’t speak.

“It’s going to be fine; I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m only sixteen...”

“You’re very mature for your age. Nothing bad will happen.”

“I’m not going to,” she repeated, resolute. “If you try to do it, I’ll scream and wake everyone up!”

“You would only be screaming because you liked it.” Novak scoffed, exhaling some smoke. “You’re a very nice girl, and you don’t go and sleep around with other men, but I know that under the right circumstances, you can be a slut.”

Luisa was disgusted by such a vulgar comment, and she laughed bitterly and threw it right back at Novak. “I’ll scream right now if you keep talking like that!” she said, raising her voice.

Novak’s smirk faded, and his face went pale. “Keep your mouth shut, dammit.”

Luisa comically put a hand to her ear and raised her voice again. “What was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of my own voice!”

She laughed sincerely at the absurdity of it all, and for a second she thought that Novak’s stony facade would break and he would laugh with her. That was the Novak she had met, after all, the gentle German soldier with soft blue eyes and something resembling a sense of humor, but as she turned to look, waiting for him to join her, she could see something in those eyes had hardened into ice. 

Novak wasn’t laughing.

Luisa stopped immediately and began to apologize, ashamed of herself, but she soon felt his knuckles slam into her face. She cried out at the pain and was promptly hit again as Novak yelled at her to be quiet. 

She had to summon all of her strength not to make any noise, and once he saw that she was quiet, Novak walked off, muttering curses. 

Luisa watched as blood trickled from her nose.

Novak still took up her every waking thought, but in a much different way than he had before.

_ I can’t just tell him not to do those things, he’s got to learn for himself! _

_ But how do I expect him to do that if I don’t say anything? _

_ Maybe I should tell someone else. _

_ No, no, that would get me in too much trouble. If something bad happens, it’s my fault for not stopping him. _

_ Then talk to him! _

_ But he’d hit me! _

_ Maybe I’m going crazy. _

_ I don’t think Helene was really crazy. _

_ Maybe I’m not remembering things right. He’s a nice guy, really. He wouldn’t do any of that before… _

_ Is it because I’m my father’s kid?  _

_ No, he said he didn’t want to hurt him. _

_ He hurt me. _

_ He hit me. _

_ He hit me. That’s not supposed to happen. _

_ I was asking for it, with my bad temper and all! Remember how I used to argue with Papá all the time? It’ll be like that. I just have to cool out. _

_ And if I don’t, the war will end soon enough, and he’ll go home! Nothing lasts forever, you know. _

_ Bring a knife with you next time, in case he tries to do anything. _

_ He’ll find it and cut me to ribbons with it. I can’t do that. He found out when I was in the tavern with Flavio and Marcello, God knows what else he can find out! _

Luisa was hardly aware of her withdrawal into herself. She was falling asleep in class often due to her nightly visits, and Flavio would either flick her ear and wake her up, or the teacher would catch her and have her clean the chalkboard after school.

She couldn’t answer questions right with all her thinking; people said she was becoming more and more like her mother, introverted and aloof, as the days went by.

The boys called her a sissy, which was their go-to explanation for anything strange that she did, while the girls told her to get more sleep and whispered to each other about how she’d gone into a tragic loneliness after the death of her father.

She tuned it out and withdrew again.

_ Don’t talk to Flavio or Marcello. Hell, don’t talk to anyone unless you have to. They’ve all realized something’s wrong, and if they find out about Novak I’m dead.  _

_ Walk to school alone.  _

_ Stop talking to the girls at lunch. _

_ As long as Novak’s with me, and as long as he’s happy, I’m alright. _


	36. Trentasei

**Part Six**

**December 1943**

It was once again Sunday in Cresto D’oro.

Everyone, regardless of whether or not they even believed in the Church and its teachings, went to Mass on Sundays. Catholicism was too big a part of their culture, and Italian culture as a whole, to cut out without losing a sense of self.

God, how the town had changed since our story began in May! They were two people short, with Cosimo buried somewhere in an unmarked grave, and Vincenzo going crazy in Genoa. The political climate had soured after Cosimo’s death, and even more after the rumors about Vincenzo got out. It was neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, brother against brother.

It was almost a different place entirely, or at least, it was to Flavio, who had always known it as rather dull and uneventful. He had always thought of it as his mission to bring some color into it, but as he zoned out during Padre Silvestro’s homily, almost choking on the smell of incense, he found that there was too much color, too much going on, and he felt constantly on-edge, like when he had the sneaking suspicion that his father was angry at him.

But going back half an hour, Flavio had spent the early part of the Mass looking around the pews for his friends. He found Marcello quickly and chuckled slightly to himself as he watched the boy drop the hymnal and grow stiff with embarrassment, but no matter how hard Flavio looked, he couldn’t find Luisa, and from the look on worried look Valencia’s face, she mustn't have been able to find her that morning either.

Luisa was in the woods, laying under a tree and trying to catch up on sleep. Novak had come to the woods drunk the night before and tried to cut her with a piece of the glass bottle. She went home and was up all night crying, and as morning came in pale and grey, she couldn’t imagine going to Mass and having to socialize with everyone. Just minutes before Valencia had woken up, she had snuck out and gone to the woods, trying to think of an excuse as to why she hadn’t been in the church.

Once the Mass finally ended, Marcello took his journal and went up in the hayloft, seeing that it was too cold to go on the hill. He was writing his story, and it was finally picking up off the ground after an hour-long session of trying to figure out why Rita would write the letter and not tell Francesco. 

Flavio didn’t even bother going back to his house and went to Signora Bianchi’s farm, where he found Marcello after a while and sat cross-legged beside him. 

Marcello hardly acknowledged his presence besides a simple ‘hello’ and a brief glance into his eyes.

“How’s it going?”

“Pretty well, actually. My book’s finally getting good, but on the other hand, my Plotchka is today. Also, have you seen Roma? I couldn’t find him at all after Mass.”

“I was looking for him too. I think he went and skipped it.”

Marcello glanced over, furrowing his brow. “I would never expect him to do that. Do you think he’s alright?”

Flavio sighed. “I don’t know. I think it might just be Signor de Cicco getting to him.” 

“That’s what everyone’s saying, but isn’t it weird that he’s stopped walking with us to school? He’s sad, sure, but he’s never liked being all alone! And he’s not talking to the girls either, so it’s not like he’s just trying to chase some skirts...”

There was a silence, and Flavio leaned over and tried to read some of Marcello’s writing. Marcello responded by leaning further away from Flavio. 

“Ah, come on! You hiding something in there?” Flavio jested.

“No, but the story’s still a very rough draft.”

“I just want to hear some of your writing.”

Marcello grunted and turned to Flavio, thinking about how paradoxical his thinking was. He always wanted someone to read his work, yet he never let anyone do it. That said, he would have to give Flavio a journal entry. He could never show the story to anyone, not unless he cut out everything about Matteo, Francesco, and all the admiring glances they gave each other.

“Alright, but it can’t be the story. Here, let me see if I can find something.” He began to flip through the pages absentmindedly, not really paying attention to their contents, assured that his life was too plain to ever reveal any sort of scandal. “Here we are…” He handed the book to Flavio, who read aloud.

“ _16 October, 1943. Well, today was the day_ —”

At this point, Marcello realized that he was an idiot, and thought he could not remember the exact contents of that day, he had a feeling that this was the entry where he rambled on and on about how handsome Flavio was. He interrupted Flavio mid sentence to fix this. “No, no, just start from here, this is the better part,” he explained, pointing further down the page. 

Flavio shrugged. “Alright, well, in that case: _We saw La Cena Della Beffe. I hadn’t seen it before, since I don’t go out much, and I thought it was great. Flavio kept trying to talk to me during the movie, though, which was driving me up a wall._

“ _We got out of the theater around the time the sun was going down. I suddenly had an idea, and I led him down to the beach. He looked up at the sky, and I took off my shoes and socks and stood in the sea._

“ _“What are you doing?” Flavio asked._ ”

“You don’t have to read the dialogue tags,” Marcello explained, knowing Flavio would ignore the advice.

“This is real good, you know. It sounds a lot like you, and I like that. I’m surprised you remember what we said, too!”

Marcello laughed and felt his cheeks flush. “Oh, shut up! I just have a good memory, I guess. And some of it gets embellished anyways, so it doesn’t really count. Just keep reading.”

Flavio continued, and Marcello closed his eyes and let himself be hypnotized by his voice.

“ _“Did you ever meet my father?”_

_““What? Um, I think I met him once.”_

_““Do you remember when he died?”_

_““Marcello, are you alright?”_

_““Yeah, I’m fine. You’ll see why we’re here, don’t worry. The night he died, my mother shut herself up in her room with him and wouldn’t let me talk to her. I didn’t know what to do, so I started running._

_“I ran aimlessly for a long time before getting to Lontano Collina and boarding a train to La Spezia. There wasn’t a moon in the sky, and it was the clearest night I’ve ever seen. I went to the beach and stood in the ocean._

_"It was completely dark. You couldn’t tell what was the sky and what was the water, or where either of them ended, if they ever did. I took comfort in that.”_

_““So why are you here with me?”_ _  
_ _““It’s been a long time since I’ve done it, and I thought you might like to try it.”_

_““Oh.”_

_““Well? What are you waiting for? Go ahead, take off your socks and your shoes.”_

_“He did it, and the waves washed over our feet, cool and sudden._

_“I shivered._

_““You want my jacket?” Flavio asked._

_“I blushed. “Are you sure you don’t need it?”_

_“Yeah. Just take it.”_

_“He gave it to me, and I put it on._

_“We stood there in silence for a long time. The clouds rolled over us, and it began to rain, light at first, then heavier and heavier._

_"We ran off the beach with our shoes, getting soaked to the skin and looking for anywhere to go inside._

Flavio smiled, looking down at the paper. Marcello gazed out at the barn door, having forgotten what he had written. “ _I have never felt more in love than I did when were running through the rain and laughing…_ ”

Marcello felt his heart drop, and time froze.

To his own surprise, Flavio remained calm, stood up, and placed the book on the floor by Marcello, whose eyes were cast down at the wood of the hayloft.

“I’m so sorry,” he explained, as his voice broke and he refused to turn to Flavio. “I totally forgot I wrote that. It doesn’t mean anything, I swear!”

“It’s alright.” There was a long, awkward silence. “Marcello, do you remember when we were in the church?”

“I do,” he whispered, still looking at the wood.

“I know how you feel about me.”

Marcello looked up, fighting the urge to smile. “Do you?”

“Yeah.”

They were speaking so low that it was hard to tell if they were speaking at all. It didn’t feel like they were; for all they could have just been looking at each other and knowing what was being said.

Marcello glanced down and then back up again, unsure if the situation was even real. “Do...do you feel the same?”

“Yeah,” Flavio said, smiling.

Marcello breathed a sigh of indescribable relief. “Thank God, thank God! That went _way_ better than I thought it would!”

“Ah, there was never a reason to worry.”

“Is this allowed?” Marcello asked, suddenly panicking. “Who am I kidding, there’s no way this is allowed! Things like this aren’t even supposed to happen. Two boys in love...tell me that doesn’t sound totally crazy!”

“If what I’m feeling isn’t love, so help me God.”

Marcello stood up and began pacing about the hayloft. “If anyone finds out about this, we’re dead. You know that, right?”

“How would they find out?”

“Rumors spread easily here. It’s only a matter of time…”

“Marcello, we haven’t even done anything!”

“Maybe we should stop before we do, then!”

Both of them were quiet, and both knew that neither would stop. How could they? How on earth could they come so far as confessing their love, almost kissing in the church, and suddenly bring all of that to a halt?

Flavio spoke first. “Look. I know you’re scared of what might happen if people find out, especially with you getting married and all. But I know you well, and I know that you love me. I’m not going to let you sacrifice your happiness for someone else’s peace of mind.”

Marcello stopped pacing and embraced Flavio, who flinched at his touch. “You really are too good for me.”

Flavio calmed himself and hugged him back, and there they stood in the hayloft, safe in each other’s arms. 

They were invincible then.

That evening, a Plotchka, the Sinti engagement celebration, was held for Marcello Oliveri and his soon-to-be bride, Agnese Fiorelli.

Marcello could hardly keep his thoughts in one place, though he always found them drifting vaguely back to the hayloft, remembering Flavio’s warmth on his skin.

Agnese arrived, and it was the first time Marcello ever really got a good, hard look at her. Her hair was fashionably short, and whenever he saw her in school, she was dressed in skirts that came down to the middle of her calf, just enough that she looked fashionable without other Sinti saying she had become a slut or a gadžo. This evening, however, she was wearing her blue Sunday blouse and a long, embroidered red skirt that used to be her mother’s. 

She stepped inside the tavern, which was not the ideal place for a Plotchka or a wedding, but seeing that it was run by a Sinto and that it was one of the largest public buildings in the little town, every time someone had a Plotchka or a wedding, Sebastiano would clear out some tables to make room and the celebration would be held. Agnese held her head high and examined her future husband. Again, of course she had seen him around, but she had never thoroughly examined him. _He looks nice enough_ , she thought. _A little scrawny, but my God, look at those eyes._

And so it began.

At some point during the celebration, Natale gave her future-daughter-in-law her nice headscarf, a dark blue one with gold coins that she had worn whenever she had guests. It was an Oliveri family heirloom, passed down from the groom’s mother to the bride-to-be for as long as anyone could remember. Agnese thanked Natale sincerely and put it on, finally feeling grown-up.

Since Marcello’s father was dead, Natale also felt it her sincere duty to bring the bottle of wine and put the necklace of gold coins on Agnese’s neck. It was unorthodox, but the fact of the matter was that Leonardo Oliveri could not do it, and there was no rule saying she could not.

Marcello watched the whole ordeal and was suddenly hit with the realization that this was the woman he would marry. She seemed like a good person, and from what he’d heard, she could do housework fine. 

But there was something missing between them: any sort of connection. They’d both been assured numerous times that their love would grow over time, and Agnese had been waiting her whole life for her wedding so she could see it unfold, but Marcello knew that he would let her down, that it would never happen.

The scent of a stalemate lingered in the air.


	37. Trentasette

It was raining in Genoa.

Vincenzo Aiello was in a bar close to the river, playing the piano. He had become numb to everything, stumbling through his own life like a drunkard.

He sat and thought, as he had done all day every day since he had left Cresto D’oro.

The world was slowly losing its color; Vincenzo’s life was fading from something real and tangible into a photograph, into the shadows. It frightened him, and he didn’t know how to stop it from happening.

He couldn’t explain it to Flavio. In fact, Vincenzo could hardly make sense of it himself.

He listened closely to the music, and he again heard that it didn’t sound as nice as it had a year ago.

Nothing felt as it had a year ago.

He gravely remembered playing the piano in La Rosa Grigia just a year ago, accompanying Valencia as she sang. He had been so much better then, better than this man who didn’t feel anything. He had cried. He had trembled with fear. His eyes had lit up as he told Flavio about the stars. He had laughed, and despite being stuck in the middle of nowhere, despite having to see the brother he loved get beaten for the smallest transgression, a year ago, just one year ago, Vincenzo had been genuinely happy with his life.

Why had that changed?

His hands moved mechanically along the ivory keys, sighing out the notes to Ravel’s _Pavane Pour une Infante Défunte_.

Before he knew what was happening, a thought flickered through his mind, and as soon as it had come, it was gone.

He got up from the piano midway through the song and found himself gazing out the window, looking deeper and deeper into his cold reflection in the Polcevera river.


	38. Trentotto

Several days later, Flavio and Marcello were up in the hayloft again. Flavio was reciting American love poems; Marcello was trying to write Italian ones. Neither of them knew what the other was doing. 

Once he had finished a verse, Marcello looked down at it, reading it over and wondering why he even tried in the first place. Flavio spoke.

“...It looks like a goddamn nightmare in English, so I don’t know how anyone can think it’s pretty, but in the margins, it’s translated like this, and it’s actually really good: ‘Is it a sin to love thee?—”

“Ain’t that familiar...” Marcello muttered, laughing a little. Flavio smiled at the sound of it and continued.

“Is it a sin to love thee? Then my soul is deeply colored. For my life’s blood, as it gushes, takes its deep red from love’s tide.”

“I wish I could write like that.”

Flavio looked up. “You shut your mouth. You write just fine; better than that, even.”

“You’re just trying to flatter me.”

“Maybe,” Flavio admitted, scooting closer to Marcello and putting his arm around his shoulder.

Marcello shivered and leaned his head on Flavio’s arm. 

“You said you had that...that...Pulaciacca not long ago, right? How’d that go?”

Marcello laughed at Flavio’s attempt to pronounce Plotchka, finding it funnier than hearing him try to read English, and sighed. “Agnese’s a fine girl; I’m sure of it. She’s pretty. I never noticed that before. Light enough that she could pass for Italian if she wanted to, dark eyes, looks good in gold, but God and everyone else knows I don’t want to marry her. Hell, I think she might know too, but she’s ignoring it.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. It’s out of your power entirely.”

“Will you still…” Flavio hesitated. “Will we still do stuff like this? Just hang out and...I don’t know...be in love?”

Marcello sighed. “I’ll try, but it’s not going to be pretty if someone finds out.”

“I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like there’s a law against it, is there?”

“I guess not, but the worst that could probably happen is ostracism. Not only from the town but from the Sinti.”

“See? It’s not that bad. Besides, no one’s going to find out.”

“You don’t understand. We’re a people without a country. We only have each other, and to lose that...”

Flavio thought for a moment, trying to think of a counterargument, but he could find none, and so he grunted. “I guess you’re right. It sucks that it has to be like this, doesn’t it?”

“You sure can say that again.”

“Just you watch. One day we won’t need to worry about this.”

Marcello laughed cynically. “And how do you expect that to happen? What, are we gonna take to the streets? We’ll be laughed out, at best.”

The tone in Marcello’s voice reminded Flavio of his father, and so he backed down defensively. “It’s just wishful thinking.”

“Yeah, but it’s never going to happen.” Noticing Flavio’s demeanor, Marcello continued, softer this time. “I’ll be the first to admit, though, it sounds really nice. You and I together, no one telling us what to do…maybe somewhere out in the country.”

“We’re already in the country.”

“Then let’s go north to the Alps. We can be goat herders and make cheese.”

“We can go to the desert and live off of wild locusts and honey.”

Both of them laughed. Padre Silvestro always seemed to be rather fond of bringing up John the Baptist during his homilies, and every time he did, he would mention the locusts and honey, given that it was about all the description of him in the bible.

They stopped laughing, and, believing the moment to be a good one, Flavio pulled Marcello off of his shoulder, looked him in the eyes, and leaned in to kiss him.

For one brief moment, nothing existed. Vincenzo hadn’t made the biggest mistake of his life, and Luisa wasn’t avoiding her friends. Marcello wasn’t going to get married, and Flavio finally belonged somewhere. 

He pulled away and briefly looked into Marcello’s wide eyes before laughing. “How could anybody see us and think we’re in the wrong here?”

“Like I’ve said, things like this don’t happen, or at least, they’re not supposed to happen.”

“Ah, screw it all. I love you, Marcello. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

The two continued to talk, safe in each other’s arms.

Meanwhile, Natale was going out to tell Enzo Fiorelli her concerns about her son’s marriage, mainly that Marcello was resistant to it, and that Agnese would have to prepare herself for a stubborn husband. She stopped, however, when she heard a noise coming from the barn. 

Thinking it was a stray cat or something to that effect, she quietly went in, so as not to scare whatever it was. She had just realized it came from the hayloft when she heard Marcello’s voice.

“I know, I know, you’ve told me a million times. We were literally just talking about it. I’m going to try as hard as I can to stay with you after I get married, because I don’t want to lose this, but I can’t promise anything.”

 _He’s up there with a girl_! Natale thought, disgusted. Before she could say anything, though, she heard another voice, and it was deeper than she expected.

“We’ve just gotta be careful how we go about doing it, that’s all. No one’s gonna find out.”

“Marcello? Who’s up there with you?” Natale asked, climbing up to the hayloft.

Marcello went pale and shoved Flavio away from him, but he was too late. They were still too close for any lie to be believable; his mother had already seen them. He wanted to say something; he needed to say something to avoid ruining everything, but nothing could come to his mind. “I’m just talking to Flavio.”

“About what?” Natale asked in Sinte, her eyes narrowing.

Flavio stared at the two like a rabbit would stare up at an eagle, frightened by the fact that he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

“The movies. Normal stuff.” Marcello stammered. He caught a few fleeting glances at Flavio.

“Really?” Natale said, raising her eyebrows. “You haven’t seen a movie since you went with him back in October.”

Flavio felt sick, and so he left the barn as silently and quickly as he could with his hands in his pockets. Marcello watched him slip out the door, noticing that he had forgotten the book of poems.

Natale got off of the ladder and sat in the hayloft next to her son. “Marcello Emilian, what were you doing with that boy?”

“Nothing! I swear!”

“Then why on earth were you talking to him about ‘being able to see him after you get married?’”

“I’m just worried that I won’t have time once I am!”

“Well then, why was he so close to you?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at the ground, his heart thundering in his chest.

“Well?”

“Leave me alone, goddamnit!” Marcello yelled, staring straight into his mother’s dark eyes. 

Natale gasped, unaccustomed to such disrespect. “You will _not_ speak to me like that! I’m asking you a question, and I expect you to answer! What were you doing with that boy, Marcello?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“None of my business? I’m your mother for goodness sake! I saw you two! You were...you were letting him treat you like a girl, what with your head on his shoulder! I raised you better than this, Marcello! And you’re about to get married!”

“No!”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I’m not going to get married!”

“This is exactly why you need less gadžo influence in your life! Don’t you see what he’s done to you?”

“ _Day_ , he hasn’t done anything! It was me, all me, I promise! And hell, even then, I don't think we did anything wrong!”

“Are you kidding me?” Natale asked, dumbfounded.

Marcello took a deep breath. “Tell me what we did wrong by being in love, or I won’t believe a word you say.”

“Love? _Love_? He’s a man, Marcello! He’s a gadžo! What am I going to do with you?”

Here Marcello began to cry, realizing that he couldn’t win against his mother or the rest of the world.

Natale shook her head and continued. “Shame on you, boy! If your father were still alive—”

“Don’t you dare bring him into this!” Marcello yelled. “If he were still alive, you wouldn’t be forcing me to get married!”

“Marcello Emilian, you stop that right now!”

“You know it’s true!”

Natale slapped her son in the face.

Marcello flinched backward, unsurprised. His mother shook her head, climbed down from the hayloft, and left the barn muttering.


	39. Trentanove

Luisa was dreading leaving her house, but she knew she couldn’t avoid seeing Novak. She had gotten accustomed enough to him to know that there were consequences if she wasn’t there.

He’d set her house on fire as Signora Palminteri had threatened.

He’d beat her again, and she wouldn’t be able to think of an excuse for the bruises, the burns.

He’d cut her throat, let her bleed out, and dump her body in the creek.

Unwilling to think about it any longer, she threw her blanket off herself and pulled the dress from underneath her bed, clutching it hard against her.

She walked through the back of the town like she always did, passing Signora Palminteri’s house, passing the seamstress’s shop, passing the people who never saw her sneaking through the night.

She stopped on the stone bridge that led across the creek to the Bianchi farm, and something about the cold air on her neck made her stop and look up at the moon. 

There was hardly any moon up there, just a little sliver on the breast of the sky, but in Luisa’s eyes, at least, it shone almost as bright as the sun, and she stood in its pale glow for a while to delay her arrival in the woods.

Suddenly, she heard a voice behind her.

“Roma? What are you doing here? What do you have in your arms?” The voice was warm and full, and as she would come to notice, it was deeper than she had always thought. Luisa flinched at the sound of it, fearing the worst, and turning around, she could just make out a Marcello-like figure standing on the other side of the bridge.

She had to think of a lie, and fast, but her mind was blank. “I-I’m going off to the woods. What are _you_ doing here?” she asked. 

Marcello silently took a few steps towards Luisa. She longed to talk to him, to tell him everything that was happening, and from the look on his face, it seemed that he had something to say as well. They could talk. They could confide in each other the way friends did, and they would both leave the bridge feeling more confident than they had before.

“I don’t know what else to do. I’m just so glad I caught you,” Marcello explained. “I really need to talk to someone right now.”

Luisa was suddenly pushed back into reality, back into the hell Novak would put her through if she wasn’t in the woods when he expected her to be. “Don’t,” she said, passing Marcello on the bridge and walking behind Signora Bianchi’s house.

Confused, Marcello followed behind her. “What? Why not?” 

“I can’t tell you that.” 

“You’re my best friend!”

“What about Flavio?” Luisa asked as she stopped, finding that she was suddenly jealous, or perhaps turned bitter by her circumstances. “You’ve been spending all your time with him; why can’t you tell whatever you have to say to him?”

Marcello stopped as a pang of anger and regret pierced his heart, but instead of letting it out, he breathed it in. “Look, you never talk to us anymore! What happened, Roma? Is this about your father? We can talk about that if you want! We’ve just got to talk to each other!” He turned his head, trying to blink back tears. “Whatever you did, whatever it is you’re going out to the woods for, it can’t be any worse than what I did. So talk to me, won’t you?”

Luisa was too afraid to answer and stopped walking.

Marcello caught up to her. “Here, I can go first if you want.”

She groaned. “Fine. Just be quick about it. I don’t want to be late. Come on, we’ll walk as far as the church.”

The two began to walk, and Marcello cleared his throat and began to explain his situation. “I’ve always known I was different, in some way or another. I’ve just always felt it, even back in Genoa.” He shook his head. “Then I came here, and after a while, it became impossible to ignore.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“I don’t know how to explain it. I remember one time all of us boys in Genoa got a hold of a magazine and talked about some film star’s legs. I remember just sitting there...” He shook his head and groaned. “Look, you know I’m getting married, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t want to. I really don’t want to, and not just because I’ve never met her.” He took a breath. “I don’t like girls, Roma.”

Luisa’s heart skipped a beat, and she kept her eyes on her brown shoes, dusted with dried mud. If Marcello meant what she thought he meant, there was a chance that she would be able to tell him everything. “Could you elaborate?” she said after a short pause.

“I just don’t like them! I never liked them; not the way you do, anyways. My father always said it would change, that I would get older and would learn to like them, but I never did. And I know why now. I know why I’ve always felt so different. Roma, I’ve fallen in love.” Marcello smiled a little, then blinked back a tear. “I’ve fallen in love, Roma, and it is the most wonderful thing in the world, but the person I’m in love with isn’t a girl.”

“My God.” It was all Luisa could say, or even think to say as she turned to Marcello, her eyes wide. “Oh my God. You mean you’re…one of _those_ guys?”

“Yes. Yeah, I am!”

“Who is it?” Luisa asked, excited.

“It’s Flavio.”

Luisa smiled a little despite herself. It was the first time she hadn’t been somewhat afraid or anxious in a long time. “How did I not see it before? The two of you would be so good for each other!” 

Marcello’s smile disappeared, and he suddenly looked down at the ground, ashamed.

“Is something wrong?”

“Well, I know he loves me too because he told me not long ago. And we’ve…” He sighed. “You know, we’ve kissed and stuff. And then today we were in the hayloft, and my mother walked in.”

“Oh my God. What did she say?”

“Well, Flavio ran out, and she started in on me about how I need to spend less time around non-Sinti people, and...God, I don’t know…”

“What will happen if she tells people?” Luisa asked, feeling bad for Marcello, but more desperate to learn what was at stake for her.

“For all I know, they’ll crucify me!”

Luisa nodded gravely. “Well, she won’t tell anyone, will she?”

“I mean, she’s probably going to have to tell Agnese’s family.”

Luisa sighed, debating what to say. “If it makes you feel any better, I think I might be like you.”

Marcello’s eyes widened, and he suddenly turned to Luisa. “You’re kidding!”

“I don’t know. I’m not totally sure of it myself.” She weighed the consequences of telling him she was a girl with a boy’s body and imagined him turning around disgusted and never speaking to her again. “There’s something else I want to tell you, but...ah, I can’t right now! I need to leave soon, and I’m not ready to tell you. I promise I’ll do it another time, alright?”

“Alright.”

They walked in a calm silence for a minute.

“You’ve kissed a boy, then?” Luisa asked. 

Marcello nodded. 

“What was that like?” She knew it didn’t make sense for her to ask. She had kissed Novak so many times, and yet she wondered vaguely what it was like to kiss someone her own age, as well as what it was like to be kissed gently, to be comfortable with a kiss.

“Oh, Roma, it was wonderful. It’s like...like when you eat an orange for the first time.” He paused, then mischievously added “Like tasting the forbidden fruit, and learning that it’s delicious and that you never want to eat anything else again. And it sounds silly when I put it like that, but…” Marcello trailed off and realized they had walked to the church. “Have a good night, Roma.”

"You too.” It was at this point that they both heard footsteps coming from the woods. “Oh, God…” Luisa muttered, hurrying towards the trees. Marcello, curious as ever, followed, and he leaned against a tree nonchalantly.

From a distance, he saw Luisa talking to a tall man in a German uniform. The man turned briefly and looked at him, and Marcello’s blood ran cold.

Luisa spoke apologetically and quickly. “I’m sorry, okay! I got distracted!”

“You got distracted? That’s what you say after fucking him?” Novak asked, pointing to Marcello. 

“He’s just my friend, I swear!”

“Oh, really? Well then, why doesn’t your ‘friend’ come out of the shadows?”

“Look, let’s just put this all behind us and—”

“Enough!” Novak yelled, hitting Luisa across the face.

Marcello ran towards the two. “Don’t you dare touch him!” 

“Stop!” Luisa yelled, trying to keep her voice down.

Novak saw Marcello’s dark face for the first time and pushed him in the shoulder as a rage swelled up inside him like a fever. “A gypsy? You fucked a goddamn gypsy?” Novak threw down his cigarette and scoffed. “Fucking whore!”

Marcello looked at Novak, and for a brief, fleeting moment, he felt a fire burn inside him, a pure animalistic determination.

He came to his senses; he had always been a sensible boy, and he suddenly realized that he could die there that night. He knew it; he knew that most German soldiers, especially angry ones, wouldn’t hesitate to stab him through the heart and leave him in the woods, and yet, Marcello realized then that something was telling him to kill Novak.

Marcello wanted to scream at him and claw at him and feel his blood on his hands, avenge whoever had already died because of him; he wanted to do anything but leave Novak in the forest to do God knows what with Luisa.

But strangely, before he could bring himself to do anything, Marcello Oliveri walked away, Flavio’s words echoing in his ears.

“ _You’re a coward, Marcello_ …”


	40. Quaranta

Though it took quite a while to arrive, the morning eventually came, and once again Natale’s stomach churned at the thought of Marcello’s actions the day before. She could not feel at peace until she told someone what had happened, so she walked, briskly and gravely, to the Fiorelli household. If anyone was to be told, Natale thought, it would be them.

“Ah, good morning,” Enzo Fiorelli said as he opened the door and saw the familiar face.

“Hello, Enzo. I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I’m afraid I have some...um...some rather bad news regarding our children’s marriage.”

Enzo raised an eyebrow. Agnese, in the other room, almost dropped the quilt she was working on. 

“Of course,” Enzo stammered, clearing his throat. “Why don’t you come inside?”

Natale walked through the doorway and took her wool scarf off her shoulders. The two adults sat at a table in the main room; Agnese came in and sat on the floor, still embroidering her quilt. “Is Marcello alright?” she asked, eager to learn anything.

Natale sighed. “I just don’t know. For the longest time, he’s been trying to avoid getting married, and until yesterday I had chalked it up to childish defiance. But, as it turns out…” She hesitated, pursing her lips. “Agnese, dear, I think you ought to leave.”

Her dark eyes went wide. “What? No! I want to hear what happened! I’m going to marry him, after all! Shouldn’t I know?”

“This is a mature subject.”

“If I’m old enough to get married, I’m old enough to know what’s going on!”

“Agnese Maria, this is your mother-in-law you’re talking to!” Enzo scolded. The girl flashed a glare at her father, angrily picked up her embroidery, and went into the bedroom she shared with her younger sisters, slamming the door.

“What are you doing here?” one of them asked. “Don’t you have a quilt that needs stitching?”

“Quiet! My marriage is at stake!” Agnese replied, pressing her ear to the wall.

In the other room, Natale turned back to Enzo. “Children these days, they’re so disrespectful! Marcello has the same problem, you know.”

“Ah, yes, Marcello! What’s happened to him?”

Natale sighed again. “I’m afraid I’ve discovered that he’s inverted.”

Agnese’s brow furrowed in confusion. 

Enzo nodded grimly, unsure what to make of this revelation. “Now, when you say that, do you mean that he’s tried to—”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

Enzo grunted and glanced around nervously. “How do you know?”

“I...I saw him with another boy, a gadžo.”

Agnese was still confused. Whoever Marcello had been ‘with’ wasn’t Sinti, but surely that wasn’t enough to warrant a conversation Agnese had been excluded from. What could Marcello and the boy have done that was so bad?

Enzo nodded.

“I just don’t understand what’s gotten into that boy! Leonardo and I surely raised him better than this!”

Agnese rattled her fingers on the wall.

“I’m sure you did, Natale. Now if you don’t mind my asking, who did he...who did you catch him with?”

Natale’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It was Flavio Aiello, the seamstress’s younger son.”

Agnese did not hear the whisper through the wall, and panicked at everything that could have happened to the man she was supposed to marry, she ran into the main room, not even attempting to be sly about it. “Who was it? Is Marcello alright? What did the boy do?”

Enzo turned and looked sternly at his daughter. “Agnese, what did Signora Oliveri tell you?”

“What happened to Marcello? Did he get hurt?”

Natale looked around, flustered. “Enzo, I think I should leave. I’ll let you tell your daughter what happened. I’ll come back here this evening, and we’ll discuss what to do then.” She quickly wrapped her scarf around her shoulders and left.


	41. Quarantuno

The next day, Agnese walked into class slowly and uneasily, not sure what to make of anything. She’d hardly slept the night before, and she was beginning to see the future she’d always wanted crumble before her eyes.

She sat at her desk and looked around to see if Marcello had arrived yet, but he wasn’t there.

The other girls were quick to notice how quiet and uneasy she was, and they all confronted her in the back of the room, desperate to know what was wrong. 

“Marcello’s mother came by the other day,” she said. 

“Did something happen?” asked one girl.

Agnese sighed. “It’s just...he’s gotten himself in a whole lot of trouble.”

“Is he going with some other girl? I read about something like that in a book once, so maybe I could help you out with it.”

Agnese shook her head, flattered at the offer, and began to whisper. The other girls leaned in close to her. “My father sat me down last night and explained what Signora Oliveri said to him. Marcello is sick in the head.”

“What do you mean?” a girl asked.

“Instead of wanting to be with girls, he wants to be with boys. His mother said that she caught him with Flavio Aiello.”

Paolo Costa heard the mention of Flavio’s name, and, upon hearing the girls gasp, he stopped his conversation with his friends to listen in.

The girls began asking questions over each other.

“What were they doing?”

“So he’s sick too?”

“Are you still getting married?”

“What if he treats you like a boy?”

“Slow down, all of you!” 

The girls hushed, desperate to hear what Agnese had to say.

“Of course I’m still marrying him, Liona. It wasn’t an easy decision for the three of us to make; my father says he ought to be outcast from gypsy society entirely for it, but his mother begged us not to do something that drastic. After a long time, we all ended up agreeing that it would be good for him; it might help him get better.”

“What were him and Flavio doing?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t hear what Signora Oliveri said, and my dad wouldn’t tell me.”

“Do you think they were…” a girl asked, suddenly hesitating. “Sleeping together?”

“What? No, of course not! How could they do that if they’re boys?”

“I’ve heard it can happen.”

All of the girls looked at the one who had said it. “Who told you that?”

She shrugged, and there was an awkward silence. Agnese shook her head and took a breath.

“I just can’t believe it. I’m supposed to marry him, but I guess until he gets better, he won’t love me. He may not even _like_ me!” She began to cry softly, and one of the girls, one that was quite close to her, put a hand on her shoulder. 

Agnese wiped her tears away. “No use crying about it now; I’ll never get my work done like this...thank you, Lucia.”

There was another awkward silence.

“Sorry to change the topic,” another girl began. “But are you still leaving school when you get married?”

“Yeah. Me and Marcello both.”

“When’s your last day?”

“The twelfth. We’ve only been in here so long because he was so hesitant about getting married. My father was good friends with his; he had always thought Marcello would make a fine match, but we were too young to marry then, and then Signor Oliveri died before him and my father ever got to talk it over. Signora Oliveri says that the only reason she didn’t arrange a match any sooner herself was because Marcello was just so stubborn…I guess we know why now.”

The door opened, and everyone in the room turned around to see Marcello, who, unbeknownst to them, was shaking with the fear that the other students might have somehow known what had happened. 

All the girls but Agnese looked down, suddenly interested in their skirts. Agnese stared straight up at Marcello as he walked towards his seat, wondering what kinds of things were going through his head.

The boys snickered, and for a moment Marcello stood in the middle of the aisle like a deer in headlights before slumping down at his desk.

The girls turned back to each other, changing the topic to Liona Palminteri’s handsome older brother.

Flavio came in a few minutes later, and Marcello refused to meet his eye as he sat down.

Halfway through arithmetic, Luisa came through the doorway with her schoolbag. The teacher turned from the blackboard and looked at her. The students did the same.

“Roma de Cicco, you’re late.”

“I’m so sorry, Signor. I didn’t sleep well last night, and so I woke up late—”

“No more excuses. Take a seat, and from now on try to get to bed earlier.”

After school, Marcello stayed behind to clear up some history questions with the teacher, and he tried to extend this as long as he could; he was horrified of what would happen if Paolo and his friends cornered him somewhere the teacher couldn’t see. 

Flavio took his time leaving, knowing there was nothing good waiting for him at home, and looked up at the grey sky from the doorway. 

Suddenly, a hand hit him hard on the back and he fell onto the wet ground with a thud. He grunted and stood up, trying to brush the loose, damp dirt off of his pants.

Turning around, he saw the other boys laughing behind him.

“So what happened with you and the gypsy?” Paolo asked.

“You leave that alone, dammit!”

“What did you do?”

“We didn’t do anything!”

“Then what the hell was Agnese Fiorelli blubbering about this morning?”

Flavio was silent.

“Well?”

“Leave me alone, you bastards! I don’t want to have to make you!”

The boys laughed again. The sound of it would ring in Flavio’s ears, haunt him in his dreams, for years to come. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” he asked, raw emotion scratching his voice despite his attempts to remain somewhat cool and collected. “Why can’t you just let me be?”

“You want to know why? I’ll tell you! You’re goddamn psychopaths, you and Marcello both! I always knew that you were going to be the one to do something like this, Flavio. Good thing you left us when you did, or you might’ve gotten your hands down one of our pants!”

Just then, Marcello Oliveri exited the building, thinking the coast was clear. He gasped when he saw the scene before him.

Paolo walked up to the writer. “Well, I’ll be damned! Why don’t you tell us, gypsy-boy; what the hell was Agnese saying about you and him this morning?”

Marcello felt like he was in a dream, a nightmare that had come true. “Agnese?” he asked, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Yes, Agnese Fiorelli. Did you forget how to speak Italian or something?”

“Leave him alone!” Flavio yelled.

Marcello breathed in quickly and looked down, trying to come to his senses. “I didn’t forget. I’ve been speaking it for as long as I can remember. And I don’t know what Agnese was talking about because I wasn’t there!”

“Well, let’s just say it was a little something about you and Flavio, then.”

Marcello went pale. 

Paolo pointed and laughed with the other boys. “Look! He knows!”

“We didn’t do anything!”

“Are you kidding me?” Paolo asked. “Are you fucking kidding me, Marcello? You would’ve been better off if you died in Genoa! You were always trouble!”

Paolo kicked Marcello in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. 

Flavio stood wide-eyed and thought of his father, finding himself unable to move or think. 

The other boys surrounded Marcello. Flavio watched, wondering if this was the life the two of them would have to lead if everyone knew about them.

There were more kicks. Marcello continued to cry out, wondering if Flavio had changed his mind about him and decided that he was just some gypsy nobody that wasn’t worth caring about. 

There was a flash of a steel blade as Marcello’s head was turned, and Flavio could no longer stand and do nothing. Those boys hated him, and as much as Flavio didn’t want to admit it, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him with the knife. He was just a gypsy, after all, not to mention a freak. 

Desperately, Flavio shoved Paolo away from Marcello, causing him and the other boys to turn their attention to the stargazer.

Marcello laid on the ground, slowly bringing his head up to see what was the matter, why the boys had stopped.

“Run!” Flavio yelled at him, dodging a punch. 

Marcello forced himself to his feet, wondering why Flavio wasn’t trying to get away too.

“Run, Marcello! Why aren’t you running?”

He wiped blood from his mouth and nodded quickly, running away, praying Flavio wouldn’t be hurt too badly.

An hour passed, and Flavio was lying in the dirt, staring up again at the grey sky, which had darkened considerably since he had tried to leave the school.

He laid there for a long time, utterly defeated both mentally and physically. After what felt like an eternity, he pulled his hand away from the cut on his shoulder, picked himself up off the ground, and silently started on his way back home. 

The sky cleared, and the first few stars began to shine while he was on his way, and by the time he got home, he could see Cassiopeia peaking out above the flat roof.

Cassiopeia, Vincenzo’s favorite constellation. There was Vincenzo, Flavio thought vaguely and angrily. No matter how far away he was, he would always mock him. That snake-lady up in the stars was laughing, laughing like the boys in the schoolyard.

Laughing, always laughing, everyone laughing at him.

Perhaps it was this thought that made him climb up the tree to the rooftop and lay there, all alone, thinking of the night not so long ago when Vincenzo had laid up there with him.

Flavio had been trying to tell him something he didn’t know how to put into words that night, and there, laying in the cold, angry at the whole world, the words finally came to him. He climbed down the tree and opened the door, looking up at Cassiopeia one final time before going to his room.

He sat at the desk and rummaged through the drawers, looking for some paper and a pen. When he finally found them, he took a deep breath and poured out the whole story to his brother.

_6 December, 1943_

_Vincenzo,_

_I had no idea someone’s life could change in such a short period of time. It only takes a minute to lose everything, but you spend the rest of your life trying to get it back._

_What I’m trying to say is this: you’re not the only one going through hell right now._

_Remember that night we were on the rooftop, and I got really upset? I was trying to tell you something, Vinci, and I’m finally able to say it now._

_I’m not normal. I guess I’ve never been, but I fell in love with...wait for it...Marcello Oliveri._

_I know it was stupid, it was so stupid of me. At least, it seemed that way until he told me he felt the same._

_It was pretty great. I’m not going to lie and say it wasn’t, and if you want to hate me for it, go right ahead. But like they say, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones._

_Anyways, his mom saw us together in the hayloft. I don’t want to go too much into it. I can’t find your book of poems, and somehow the whole town found out about Marcello and me._

_I got beat up today by the boys at school. They were going to kill Marcello, Vinci. Paolo had a knife and everything, and I couldn’t see them slit his throat and have him die right in front of me…I love that boy, dammit..._

Flavio stopped, remembering the moment and wondering if he should rip up the paper. He sat back and dug his nails into his arms instead, yelling at himself to calm down and stop crying.

He continued.

_I get the feeling it’s going to be like this for a while, and once Papà finds out, he’ll bash my head in and throw me out or something. And Mamma will start laughing again, dammit!_

_Listen, if you’re still going to New York, there’ s never been a better time to take me with you. There’s nothing left for me here. I’m ready to leave this place for good._


	42. Quarantadue

T he others may have been able to brush off the changes in Luisa as the result of her father’s sudden death, but it was impossible for Valencia to. Cosimo’s death had made Luisa more careful, less reckless, but something new had come upon her. She didn’t talk to Valencia much anymore; mostly she just drew pictures by the window or tinkered around on the piano. 

Valencia, despite her aloofness, was very observant, especially when it came to matters of character, and if Luisa was alright, she would have been out in town getting into trouble typical of her age, or out on the hill with her friends, or even by herself, going out for a walk in the woods.

That night, Valencia went to check on her daughter, but again found that she wasn’t in her room. She half-expected it, and this time, she was determined to get to the bottom of it. Head held high, she walked down the hall and found her child by the front door with her hand on the knob.

“Roma.”

Luisa flinched and turned around, her eyes wide. Her dress was once again hidden in her jacket, as she had learned to hide it in case someone caught her, like Marcello or Valencia.

“Roma, you’re not going to go anywhere tonight.”

“Mamma—”

“Where are you trying to go?” Valencia asked sternly, taking a step forward.

Luisa looked down at the ground, ready to crumble, and hugged herself. “I’m so sorry,” she choked out. “Mamma, I’m so sorry.” She began to cry, and Valencia softened and stepped back, wondering why her child was so upset.

“What’s wrong?” 

“It doesn’t matter!” she said, looking up. “I’m going to stay here tonight, okay? I’m not going anywhere!”

“Roma, what’s going on?”

“Trust me when I say that it doesn’t matter.” Luisa took a shaky breath and looked back down at the ground. “I’m going back to bed. I love you, Mamma.”

“I love you too,” Valencia said, unsure of how else to reply, unsure of how to ask where Luisa had been planning to go.

Luisa turned and walked back to her bedroom. Valencia watched her silently until she was inside, noticing bruises on her arm, and stood where she was in the hall before absentmindedly beginning to sing.

“ _ Nessun dorma, Nessun dorma...Tu pure, oh Principessa _ —”

Luisa stopped when she heard the song and remembered her father crying out on the gallows. It angered her, and she opened her door quickly and yelled. “Mamma! Please just let me sleep!”

Valencia realized what she had done and returned to her room, falling asleep on Cosimo’s side of the bed.

Luisa was almost relieved in a way. Under her mother’s watchful, if a bit distracted eye, she wouldn’t have to see Novak, so there was no risk of her getting hurt. Of course, she was certain that Novak would beat her the next time they met and yell that she had been trying to avoid him, but for that night, that one single night, she was free.

She wouldn’t waste such an opportunity sleeping; that was for certain. While it would be lovely to finally catch up on the sleep she’d lost over Novak, she was both too worried and too excited to shut her eyes.

She was warm under the blanket, half-asleep, when she heard something hard hit the window, and her blood ran cold. Half-asleep and shaking, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and opened the window. To her surprise and horror, she saw Novak, and he was ready to throw another stone.

“Stop that! You’ll wake up my mother!” Luisa whispered.

“Where have you been?” Novak asked angrily.

“My mom caught me trying to sneak out again. How did you even know to come here?”

“It doesn’t matter. If your mom caught you, why didn’t you just come later?”

Luisa looked around, unable to answer.

“Why didn’t you come, dammit?”

“She wouldn’t let me, I already told you!”

“Then come on! I’m going to the woods now, and you’re going to join me.”

"I don’t want to!” Luisa said, raising her voice slightly. 

“Then I suppose you don’t love me anymore? I suppose you’ll go and fuck more gypsies?”

Seeing that she had no choice, Luisa shut the window and slipped out of the house silently, taking her dress with her. Novak hit his palm hard on the back of her head, and the two walked to the forest. 


	43. Quarantatre

Every school day since Marcello had gotten to Cresto D’oro had gone by at a normal pace, but on the very last day before his wedding, it seemed that the seconds lasted hours, though the hours lasted mere minutes.

It had been three years since he had arrived in the town, and he had walked into the schoolhouse that bright July morning uncertain of what to expect. Although his father had taught him much over the course of the years, Marcello found that nothing had prepared him for the excitement and rigor of a formal education.

He sat at his desk and wondered.

How many times had he hung his scarf in the coat room and thought nothing of it?

How many times had he passed notes to Flavio, not realizing it was a privilege to be able to do so?

How many times had he sat at his desk, absorbed in whatever they had to read for literature?

Throughout the day, he found himself running his fingertips along the rough wooden desk, anxiously awaiting the evening, when he would be married, when he would be expected to start a family. He knew that when the evening came, his life would change forever, and it terrified him.

Meanwhile, Agnese was still unsure how to feel about the matter. She was going to be married; it was the moment she’d waited for all her life! 

She had never thought she’d feel so conflicted about it, but there she sat with a pit in her stomach. She was going to leave her family for Marcello’s; And what would become of them? 

A long time ago, she had thought that seeing her future husband would fill her with a sense of happiness and pride, but throughout the day, whenever she stole glances at Marcello, she felt something else. What it was, she couldn’t say, but something in the way Marcello looked around the classroom with his once-eager green eyes pale and lifeless formed a lump in Agnese’s throat as she realized that this boy was not the man she always dreamed she would have. This boy could never love her back, and yet they would be together for the rest of their lives.

Finally, after a long, uneasy day for both of them, the class was dismissed, and for the last time, Marcello Oliveri and Agnese Fiorelli left the building.

The sound of music filled the air of La Rosa Grigia, which was weighed down by the humid, sweet scent of wine. It was a joyous occasion, or at least it should have been, but despite Natale’s attempts to remain cheerful and encourage her son, nothing could comfort Marcello, who spent most of the night strumming at his mandolin and staring off at nothing.

Late that night, when the wedding was over and all the guests had all gone their own ways, the newlyweds were brought back to the farm, where Natale, Marcello, and Agnese sat down at the table and discussed the future.

“Seeing that the two of you are married,” Natale began. “Signora Bianchi and I have decided that you can have the guest room I’ve been staying in, and I’ll take the gable room. I haven’t needed that large of a bed, anyways.”

Agnese nodded wordlessly.

“I liked it in there…” Marcello muttered. 

Natale shot a glance at him. 

“Sorry.”

“Marcello, you go take your things out of there. Agnese, feel free to unpack.” 

Agnese slid out of her chair, picked up her bag, and started up the stairs.

“The guest room is the one on the left!” Natale called after her.

Later, Marcello came into the guest room and sat himself down on the bed. Agnese was next to him, reading a book. Noticing that he came in, she set the book down on the bed and took in a deep breath. “I guess we’re married now,” 

“I know.”

“It’s weird to think about, don’t you think?

“I guess.”

There was an awkward silence, and Agnese cleared her throat and spoke again “If we’re married, and it’s our wedding night, does that mean that we have to…?”

“I don’t know!” Marcello whisper-yelled. He sighed and laid down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “We’re just kids, Agnese. I don’t even know you! How am I supposed to be ready to do _that_?”

“You did it with Flavio.”

Marcello sat straight up and looked at his new wife in alarm. “What?”

“Well, didn’t you?” Agnese asked, looking around nervously. 

“No! No, of course not! Where did you hear that?”

“Rita Cassadei told me.”

“How does she know anything about that?”

“I mean, we all knew that something happened between you and him, and from the way my father described it to me, it must have been bad. So I told the girls, and they said…”

“Since when do you have the right to tell them anything like that?”

Agnese sat in stunned silence for a moment. “I never told them that the two of you...had sex, I just told them what my father told me!”

“And what was that?”

“That you got caught doing something with him! I guess it was just natural for us to assume that it was sexual! You have to admit, people don’t go in a hayloft alone together for no reason! That’s how Giorgia’s sister got knocked up!”

“Well, where else were we going to go? The town? The tavern? They’d kill us in seconds! My mother hardly let Flavio in the house as it was, and the hill was too exposed…”

Agnese looked into Marcello’s eyes, regret seeping into her. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you mad, I just didn’t know why you were so upset!”

“You told everyone something you couldn’t even prove, and now everyone thinks it’s what happened. But it isn’t, godammit!”

Marcello began to pace the room, and the two were quiet for a long time, thinking. Agnese spoke again. “Even if you didn’t do... _those_ sorts of things with him, I’d like to know: why’d you do anything in the first place?”

Marcello stopped pacing and walked to the window, looking at the barn and smiling a little in spite of himself. “I love him,” he said, shaking his head. He turned to Agnese. “I sound like an idiot, and boy, do I know I am, but I can’t think of any other reason.”

Agnese nodded and wondered vaguely why the whole thing was so wrong. Marcello sounded so sincere; there was no denying that he had loved Flavio from the way he spoke. He did something strange and unprecedented, of course, but was he really a psychopath like everyone said? Was what he did really so wrong? They didn’t have sex, and he hadn’t been alone with a girl, so he had not broken any unspoken Sinti laws. Why then, did his mother have to beg for Agnese’s father not to have him cast out?

One thing was clear to her: Marcello Oliveri was no longer some man in the background of her life, some boy she could afford to ignore in school. He had come center stage instead of the man she had always secretly dreamed she would get, the man who she held onto for far longer than she should have, and Agnese had no choice but to accept that and go on with the show.


	44. Quarantaquattro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Child abuse warning

Flavio was lying on the roof, looking up at the stars (or lack thereof) and letting the cold rain wash his face. It had been a relatively calm day compared to all the others recently, and he finally felt at peace with everything.

This peace, however, wouldn’t last for long; he could tell as soon as he heard his father calling his name.

He never liked Flavio, and for that matter, neither had his mother.

The only difference between the two was that the worst his mother had ever done was ask him why he couldn’t be more like his brother. She had never beaten him for being ‘an annoying little asshole’ the way his father did, or if she had, Flavio could not remember.

He climbed down the tree next to the house, his hands clutched hard in his pockets.

Everyone had been talking about him lately; it had all started with the girls in school, then the boys knew; Flavio knew it would be just a matter of time before his parents heard something. He walked into the living room to see both of his parents sitting on the ugly green couch. His heart dropped, and he leaned against the wall, looking down, hoping he could make himself invisible. “What did I do this time?”

“Do you know what your mother heard at the fountain today?” Sergio Aiello asked angrily.

Flavio said nothing and looked at the door, thinking about how Vincenzo had just packed his things and walked right out.

He wondered how easy it would be for him to do the same.

“Hey, you little shit, don’t you hear me?”

Flavio looked slowly over at his father, clearing his throat so that his voice did not break when he spoke. “What did she hear?”

“You’ve been fucking the Oliveri boy.”

Flavio felt his face go red, though he knew it was coming. He thought he heard his mother laugh, but it felt slowed, dreamlike, almost. He cleared his throat again, desperately thinking of something to say. “That’s not true.” 

“It’s not?”

“No, it’s not.”

Sergio grunted, nodding slightly. “Goddamn liar. Your mother says that Signora Bianchi caught you two in the hayloft with your hand in his pants!”

Flavio opened his mouth to speak, to protest, to do anything but stand there and let himself be brought down, but before he could speak, his mother, Giulia, interrupted to mutter her signature grievance.

“Vincenzo never would have done anything like this…”

Flavio looked sharply up at her. “Why am I always getting compared to him?”

Giulia closed her eyes. “Well, I hate to say it, dear, but between the two of you, he’s always been the only one who stood a chance; I just don’t understand what went wrong with you!”

“Vincenzo’s not here, dammit! He left a long time ago, and you know what? He had the right idea! I’d rather be getting bombed in Genoa than talking to you!”

“Don’t you _ever_ speak to your mother like that!” Sergio yelled, stepping towards his son. 

Flavio ignored him, blinded by rage, and continued. “He might’ve gotten mixed up in the wrong stuff, and he might’ve been a goddamn idiot most of the time, but at least he cares whether I live or die!”

Sergio took another step forward.

Flavio felt a rush of adrenaline. “Oh, what now? You gonna throw me out of the house? Fine! I’ll go find Vincenzo! Hell, I’ll take Marcello with me!”

“Shut your mouth, boy!”

“Go to hell!”

Sergio hit Flavio hard in the head.

He stood there, trying to ignore the pain, felt his eyes sting, then spit at the ground and ran out of the house, just like Vincenzo had. He didn’t know what he was doing, and in all honesty, he didn’t care.

How was he to know that he had left a letter from Vincenzo on the dining room table, or that his mother was reading it as he left?


	45. Quarantacinque

**Part Seven**

**January 1944**

C hristmas had come and gone.

It was amazing that no one realized it was coming until seemingly the night before Christmas Eve.

Valencia had been busy watching Luisa like a hawk, desperately trying to wordlessly figure out what was causing such a change in her, why she kept getting bruises.

Luisa had been busy falling asleep in class and covering up whatever injuries she received from Novak the night before.

Marcello had been busy with farmwork; since he had left school, Signora Bianchi put him to more use; When he wasn’t doing that, he’d been proofreading his writing under Nostra Signora, only going elsewhere if it was raining hard enough to ruin the paper.

Up in Genoa, Vincenzo had been writing letters, hoping they would take his mind off of his thoughts, which were growing darker and darker as the days dragged on.

Flavio has been busy trying to tell his parents that they couldn’t come to New York with him.

See, when Giulia Aiello had found Vincenzo’s letter the night Flavio ran out, she had read everything, which, seeing that it was written by Vincenzo, was described in great detail. He had planned everything in a matter of weeks, gave Flavio a list of useful things to know in English, and from the way he had written, Vincenzo sounded excited about leaving.

His plan was simple enough: him and Flavio would meet in Genoa, take a train to Rome, from there, get on another train to Calabria under the guise of visiting extended family in the south, find some Americans willing to take the two as refugees looking for a better life, get on a boat, and get to New York.

Vincenzo had been saving his money for years; Flavio had pocketed whatever he could get in the last few weeks.

The two of them wouldn’t have much, but at least they’d be together in what seemed like a better place.

Of course, Giulia had to shove herself and her husband into the whole thing, saying that her and Sergio were also struggling with the war in ways the two of them couldn’t imagine, and that they deserved to go to New York as well. 

Flavio felt powerless to change their minds. He tried to tell Vincenzo about the situation, hoping that he would have a logical argument, but instead, upon receiving the letter, Vincenzo had sat at his table with his brow furrowed and his mouth open in confusion. He would have stayed there all day, gawking, had he not heard the bomb sirens go off. And even once he was in the crowded, dark basement of the building, he stood in utter awe looking at the paper he couldn’t read.

His parents later wrote to him themselves, confusing him even more. He was adamantly opposed to having more people than intended come with him, but his parents  _ did  _ offer one thing that neither he nor Flavio had very much of: money. 

So, with that factor on the table, Vincenzo rewrote his plan and sent it to Flavio, who made sure, this time, that he was the only one who read it.

Unfortunately, this plan was more complex, nd almost all money would be spent on transportation, but thankfully, Vincenzo knew that he had distant relatives living there, and they, being the friendly, family-oriented southerners his father despised, would almost certainly agree to let them live with them until they were able to find an apartment.

As for the transportation, it was not as simple as the original plan. Flavio, Giulia, and Sergio would get on a train to neutral-Switzerland, from there, get on one train and then another to ally-controlled southern France, from there, get on a boat to the British-controlled Strait of Gibraltar, and finally, get on a boat headed to New York.

As for Vincenzo, he would follow his original plan and head south, though he would do it a week or so later than the rest of his family to avoid any suspicion.

Yes, it was crazy. Yes, the Aiellos would not have the greatest conditions on either boat. But yes, they would eventually get to New York.

Once there, Vincenzo would find somewhere to live separate from the rest of them, ideally close to a school, and Flavio, under the guise of the school being closer, would move in with him.

It was seemingly foolproof, if complicated. 

Flavio approved the idea, and laying on the sour-smelling bed in his apartment, reading his brother’s letter in a city that could be destroyed at any moment, Vincenzo Aiello felt something.

It was the first time in a long time that it had happened, and he felt that slowly, the world was finally going to regain its color.


	46. Quarantasei

_ 7 January,  ~~ 1943 ~~ 1944 _

_ I guess it’s been a while since I’ve written in this thing, huh? I checked today, before I began writing, and the last time I’d done it was before my wedding.  _

_ I was in the barn today, sharpening the hoes, when Roma came by. I was pleasantly surprised to see him, and I tried to get him talking, but he said he only came by to tell me some news. _

_ “Flavio says he’s moving to America.” _

_ I dropped the hoe, and it landed with a clang on the ground. I didn’t bother picking it up. “What?” _

_ “He told me while we were leaving the school. Him and his family are moving to America.” _

_ “How?” _

_ “I don’t know, something about going through Switzerland.” _

_ “When is he leaving?” _

_ “He says they just got tickets on a ship leaving on the fifteenth.” _

_ I stood where I was for a minute, then picked up the hoe and looked at it. “I’ve really got to talk to him, then, don’t I?” _

_ “Yeah, I guess you do.”  _

_ He shifted his weight from one foot to another, and I noticed bruises on his throat. It’s that German guy, I thought angrily. “How’s your little soldier friend?” _

_ “What? Oh, Novak’s fine.” _

_ “Are the two of you a couple?” _

_ Roma looked surprised, and his cheeks went red. (He blushes so easily...) _

_“What? You told me that you were like me.”_

_He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I guess we’re a couple.”_

_ “How old is he?” I asked, already knowing the answer would be way more than anything sane. _

_ “He’s only twenty-something.” _

_ I shook my head, going back to sharpening the hoes. “That’s worrying.” _

_ “Says the married teenager,” Roma muttered. _

_ I glared at him. He was always like this, I guess, all smart-alecky. I can be too, sometimes, but when Roma does it, it just feels awful, like he meant to hurt you. _

_ I ignored him and continued. “That Novak guy, is he hurting you?” _

_ “No,” Roma said, a little too quickly. I looked up at him, unbelievingly. I literally saw him hit him that one night, and he still thinks I’ll believe him if he says that he’s not getting hurt.  _

_He groaned. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I only came by to tell you about Flavio, anyways.” He turned around, but I stopped him before he could leave._

_ “Roma, wait.” _

_ He turned, looking a little annoyed. _

_ “Can you do me a favor?”   
“Yeah. What is it?” _

_ “I’m going to go back to the house and write a note. I want you to give it to Flavio in school tomorrow.” _

_ Roma nodded, and I went off and wrote the note.  _

_ I’ve gotta do something nice for Flavio. I’m never going to see him again, and I don’t want my last memory of him to be one of my worst. _

_ I was thinking about that day in the hayloft once Roma had left, and I suddenly remembered that Flavio had left his book. I can’t let him leave it behind; he’s gotten so passionate about poetry. _

_ Then again, he can’t read English.  _


	47. Quarantasette

Flavio  was sitting at his desk, staring out the window, when he felt Luisa hit his leg. Looking over to her, he saw a piece of paper folded in her hands, and he motioned for her to hand it over. She did so, not looking away from the board, and Flavio waited until Signor Poggi’s back was turned to open it. 

He didn’t read it immediately, trying to figure out why the handwriting looked so familiar. Looking down at the swoops and curves, he was taken back to sunny afternoons sitting in the tree, staring down at Marcello, breathing in the scent of dry summer grass.

Flavio had to summon all his strength to avoid showing any emotion as he read.

  
  
  


_ 9 January, 1944 _

_ Flavio,  _

_ By now I’ve heard that you’re going to America, and I’ve decided that I have to see you again before you leave. Roma said you were leaving on the fifteenth, and if that’s still true, I’d like you to meet me by the lake on the night of 14 January.  _

_ If not, tell Roma how plans have changed so that I can make other arrangements. _

_ Marcello Oliveri _

Flavio folded the note into his pocket and couldn’t help but smile at the thought of seeing Marcello again.

It had been just over a month since that fateful day in the hayloft, and almost a month exactly since Marcello left school, but Flavio still vividly remembered the way he had walked, slowly and dully, into the classroom during the time that had passed between the two events. It had scared him then; it had scared him still. The boy, that is, Marcello, had always been so full of life, if quiet. So vivid and colorful underneath that focused demeanor. 

Vincenzo had been like that once, before turning in Cosimo, before he started staying up all night. He could work the whole day, opening his mouth only to grumble a few grievances to the pages of a textbook, but when the night came, when the air turned cold, he would still point up to the sky and tell Flavio everything he knew about it with a fire in his eyes comparable to that of the brightest stars.

All of that had been lost in mere days, and Vincenzo had grown as cold and lifeless as the darkening winter skies, then as suddenly as he had gone dead, he exploded, burning like a newborn star and running away from everything he had known.

Flavio couldn’t help but worry that Marcello was going down the same path, or that he would be forever stuck in his lifelessness.

Finally, the night of the fourteenth came, and both boys were anxious, not sure what to expect given their last meeting.

Marcello had crept into his bedroom to get his jacket, but once he had it in his arms, he found himself standing in the corner for a while, looking down at Agnese sleeping. He stared at her with his green eyes, the eyes of an old soul, his father used to say, and he felt something strange for her. It was not an attraction, not the kind he felt for Flavio, anyways, though it was a sort of love, one different from any he had experienced. He felt as though he was a father watching a sleeping child, feeling an urge to keep her out of harm’s way and happy.

Agnese deserved someone better than him.

She had always loved the idea of love; her very manner and worldview was evidence of it. The day Marcello had begun school in Cresto D’oro, she had been in the back of the room with her friends, speaking of Rita Bruzzone and her more-than-obvious crush on Paolo Costa, and she had spoken with such hope for the two of them, such hope that she herself would one day find love with the man she married.

But Marcello could not love her.

He had disappointed her before they had even been married, she deserved a much better life than having the stain on Marcello’s name pass onto her.

That said, there was no way they could divorce. Not through the law, and certainly not through the Sinti. Just thinking about it was almost insane. Marcello knew this; there was no way out, and it put him, and consequently Agnese, in a stalemate; a predicament they could never get out of.

He stared down at her, overcome by sudden emotion and shame, and, knowing he could not love her in the way she had hoped, he made a solemn vow to himself that he must try to at least form a good friendship with her. At least that way the two of them might get something out of their situation.

With that, he turned away, slipping on his jacket in the process.

He left the house that night carrying two books, one new, one borrowed. One thick, one not as much. Both of them were for Flavio.

While he walked, Marcello couldn’t help but remember the night he had gone with Luisa to the forest. The desperate look in her eyes when she pleaded with Novak, the way she did not even fight back when hit. It was so unlike her, and Marcello had spent the remainder of the night wondering if he had dreamed the whole thing.

Something awful was going to happen; Marcello could sense it. With Flavio leaving, Vincenzo gone, Cosimo dead, and himself a pariah, he could not shake the feeling that something awful was going to happen to Luisa.

A thought crept into his mind, and turning to face the direction of the barn, he saw Luisa in his mind, being discovered with some boy or another and becoming a social outcast.

It was unthinkable.

Marcello had no choice but to accept it had happened to him, but for it to happen to Luisa, to see her ridiculed and shunned by everyone, that would hurt Marcello more than anything the boys could have done to him in the schoolyard.

He shook his head and continued on his way, muttering to himself.

Finally, he made it to the lake and sat on a tree that had fallen back in August. For whatever reason, Marcello thought of the night his father had died and looked down into the dark water of the lake as he had the water of the Ligurian Sea.

He was thoroughly focused, intensely calm, and in all honesty, rather tired, so it shocked him greatly to hear the snapping of a branch from his left, and his heart suddenly began to race, worrying that whoever was out walking would think him suspect, all alone in the dead of night just outside the town.

There were more footsteps, though it was too dark for Marcello to make out whoever was there.

He tightened his grip on one of the books, bracing himself for the reveal, but then, there was a dull thud, accompanied by curses muttered in a raspy, familiar voice.

“It’s too damn dark out here!”

The corners of Marcello’s lips curled as he tried to restrain a laugh. “Hello, Flavio. I guess you haven’t been awake too long?”

Flavio smiled despite himself and walked towards the fallen tree. “I guess not. Come here often?”

“Just to meet boys and steal their hearts,” Marcello joked. “Just those of the handsome ones. It’s the one thing I’ll ever allow myself to steal.”

“Well, it’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

The two of them stood there for a while, silent. There was so much to say that neither knew where to begin. In a way, it was a comfortable silence; ever since the rumors about them got out, it was a privilege for Flavio and Marcello to be able to look at each other without an air of suspicion and fear building around them.

It was Flavio who finally broke the silence. “Is that Vincenzo’s book?”

Marcello looked down at the thing, having forgotten it was there, and handed it to Flavio. “The poems? Yeah. I thought I should give it back to you.”

Flavio leafed through it, examining his brother’s handwriting. “Where was it?”

“You left it in the hayloft.”

“Right…” Flavio sighed, closing the book. He shook his head and lost the carefree demeanor he had when he had arrived. “I’m still sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“About everything with the hayloft. It’s been awful for  both of us since then, hasn’t it?”

Marcello nodded solemnly. “It’s alright.” 

“No, it’s not. You said that it would be awful if you were cast out, and now everyone wants our heads…”

“There’s nothing that can change it now.”

“But this is going to change everything! And all cause I was talking too loud!”

“It’s not our fault we want to do things normal couples get to do. It was not our fault, it will  _ never  _ be our fault, do you understand?”

“Haven’t you heard what they’re saying?”

"Of course I have!” Marcello laughed as he said this, but it was not the warm laugh that Flavio cherished so greatly. This was the bitter laugh, the one that only appeared when Marcello was angry. 

Flavio didn’t know how to react, and the harsh sound of it frightened him some, so he was silent.

“Everyone thinks we slept together! And no matter how much we try to convince them otherwise, they’re never going to believe it! No one is ever going to believe anything good about us again, because now we’re just some perverted lunatics!” Marcello laughed again, then, suddenly somber, he shook his head and looked out at the lake. “I almost wish we had, just to spite them. Just to see the look on their faces, just to walk up to them and say that we did it, that we liked it...”

“Don’t talk like that.”

Marcello turned. “We’ve hit rock bottom, Flavio! What  are we going to do? Ruin our reputations even more? We never even had them to begin with!” 

He suddenly noticed the panicked look in Flavio’s eyes and took a breath, angry at himself for scaring him. “I’m sorry, I just...I had to get that off my chest. It’s driving me crazy…”

Flavio nodded, cleared his throat, and tried to steady himself. “What’s that other book you’ve got?”

Marcello looked at the book he still held in his left  hand, a skinnier one with a red cover. “Oh, this? This is from Roma and I both. We took what money we had been saving for ourselves, put it together, and just had enough to get you a going-away present.” He handed the book to Flavio, who turned it over and looked at the cover.

_ Contemporary Italian Poetry _ , it read.

“You really shouldn’t have,” Flavio said, looking into his friend’s eyes and smiling a little. 

Marcello looked away, almost frightened of the gesture, and spoke, pointing to the book. “If you read the preface, you’ll see that it’s all modern stuff. 1890s to the present, I think. Roma and I signed our names in the front of it.”  
Flavio opened the thing and stared down at the names of people he’d never see again. He felt the reality of his departure slice his throat, and his eyes began to sting. “Thank you,” he sputtered. 

He hugged Marcello, clinging onto him harder than he would have liked to admit. “Thank you so much! I just wish I had something to give you...”

“Oh, it’s alright.”

“No, really. Do you want...a stick? What about a wet leaf?”

Marcello laughed. “It’s alright, Flavio! Just let me go, will you? You’re gonna choke me!”

“Come on, I can’t leave you empty-handed!”

Marcello stubbornly looked in the other direction, then groaned lightheartedly. “If you insist on giving me something, a kiss will be fine.”

“With pleasure!”

Flavio leaned in to kiss Marcello on the lips once again and felt a shiver run down his spine as he put his hand on the back of Marcello’s head.

After a few moments, Marcello broke away. The two of them laughed, giddy with love once again. Marcello sighed, looked out at the lake, and began to speak. “To think that’s the last kiss…”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Flavio said, smirking devilishly. “We have all night, you know.”

Marcello felt his face grow hot. “Yeah, well...you have a train to catch in the morning, don’t you? I don’t want you wasting your whole night with me.”

“Since when is doing anything with you a waste of time? I sat in Nostra Signora for hours in the summer doing nothing but looking down at you and rambling, and it was great!”

“You know what I mean.”

There was a pause, and Marcello sighed. “This is going to be the last time we talk.”

“You’re a writer, for goodness sake! Ever heard of letters?”

“My mother would never let me…”

“Who says she has to know? Just write under Roma’s name and say you have to send them; she won’t find out.”

“She’d ask why Roma can’t send his own letters, and even if you wrote to me yourself, she would burn the letter as soon as she left the post office.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to write to ‘Roma’, instead.”

Marcello shook his head. “You are a wild one.”

Flavio laughed.

“How do you feel about going to America, anyway? I mean, it’s just so sudden.”

Flavio put his arm around Marcello, wishing he had a cigarette. “I’m kind of scared if we’re being honest. But Vincenzo’s going to get there not long after us, and besides, he says there are a lot of Italians in New York, so it can’t be  _ totally  _ foreign.”

“They’re southerners though, aren’t they?”

“You got something against southerners now?”

Marcello felt embarrassed, and he put his hands in his pockets. “It’s not that I have anything against them, it’s just that you’re a northerner.”

“I got southern blood in me; it’s alright.”

“What, do they know every southerner in a fifty-meter radius?”

“Sure do! Did you ever  _ meet  _ Signor de Cicco? That guy could tell from the way you walked, I swear!”

Marcello laughed again. “Why are you going, actually? Roma never told me, so I figured it must be some political stuff or something.”

“No, actually. Vincenzo’s dying to get out of the country, and now with everything that’s happened to us, it’s going to be nice to start over.”

“Marcello nodded, and he found himself deep in thought.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“You look worried.”

“You’re lucky to get the chance to leave…” He took a deep breath in, trying to blink away tears, but it didn’t work. “I love it and all; I’ve never known anything else, but my God, if the Germans win…” 

He stared off at the lake, his vision blurred. “They’ve got to be doing something with the Jews they arrest, and if they take Jews, no doubt they’re taking gypsies. So if the Germans take us back, how much longer will it be before they take me? My mother? Agnese? My friends in Genoa?”

Marcello shook his head and groaned. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“It’s not something I like to think about, but…”

“I get it.”

“Forget it. It’s not what we’re talking about.” Marcello held out his little finger to Flavio. “Promise me you’ll be alright in New York. It’s a big city, you know.”

Flavio smiled slightly. “We’re too old to make promises like this.”

“Well, what do you think we should do? A blood oath? Just promise me you’ll be alright, or I’ll worry myself to death!”

“Come on, Marcello! What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Your ship could wreck! It was only thirty years ago when the Titanic sank out in the Atlantic, and they called that ship unsinkable! And with the war going on, you could get stopped at some border and arrested, or—”

Flavio wrapped his finger around Marcello’s if only to calm him down. “I promise I’ll be alright.”

“You’d better keep that.”

“I will. You stop worrying so much, alright?”

“I’ll try.”

Flavio looked off towards the town. “I guess I’d better go.”

Marcello nodded solemnly. “It’s been a pleasure to know you, and I hope that we’ll have the good luck of meeting again one day.”

Flavio smiled. “Spoken like a poet.” He gave Marcello a light kiss, thanked him again for the books, and walked off.

Marcello was surprised at the simplicity of it all. He was never going to see Flavio again, and yet his departure was not a grand, tearful ordeal, but as simple as watching him walk off into the woods, ready to face the concrete jungle awaiting him.

He sighed and closed his eyes, strangely calm.


	48. Quarantotto

At the train station the next morning, Luisa stood face to face with Flavio, wishing him good luck and fighting back tears. The reality of the matter, it seemed, had not hit her until it was right in front of her face.

“You’ll write to me, won’t you?”

“Hell yeah!” Flavio said, wondering why that was even a question.

“And you’ll tell me what New York is like?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Roma!”

Luisa blushed, embarrassed that she was acting so clingy and a little worried Novak would find out. “Just don’t get robbed, alright?”

“I won’t!” Here, Flavio lowered his voice. “And, if you can, read my letters to Marcello, alright?”

Luisa nodded. “I will.”

“Alright, then. Goodbye, Roma!” Flavio turned to leave, waving, and Luisa wrung her hands nervously, wondering whether or not she should stop him. 

She decided to do it and ran across the platform to catch up with him.

Sergio muttered a grievance, and Flavio turned. 

Luisa gestured for him to follow her, and he did, both of them stopping once they were out of Giulia and Sergio’s earshot.

“What is it?”

“Before you go, I just want to say: I thought you and Marcello were good together. Really, I do.”

Flavio smiled, touched by the comment. “It’s nice to hear that, and I wish we could talk more, but I’d better get going now. Goodbye, Roma!”

“Goodbye! Don’t get robbed! Don’t forget about us, alright?”

“I won’t. Goodbye!”

Luisa watched, tears trickling down her face, as Flavio ran back, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the train, leaving Cresto D’oro behind forever.


	49. Quarantanove

The feeling of happiness at the thought of finally leaving Italy, the first feeling Vincenzo had felt in forever, had only opened the door for the rest of his emotions to flood his mind. 

The colors had come back to the world, yes, but they were too vivid; they were overwhelming the poor boy.

All through the night, he paced the bridge over the Polcevera river, back and forth, back and forth like a madman, debating whether or not to act upon his thoughts.

If he did it, everything he had lived for, everything he had ever wanted, would be lost.

But he was already so far gone! He wouldn’t amount to much, anyways, not in the state he was in.

No, he wouldn’t do it. Flavio had lost him once. He couldn’t possibly bear losing him again.

But wouldn’t he understand? 

Why didn’t Vincenzo understand? He had been perfectly fine just a few months ago, and there he was, desperately pacing the bridge, causing passersby to avoid him. What on earth had happened?

It wasn’t even just that he was upset about Cosimo anymore, no; it had grown into something he could not understand.

He felt himself slipping away, growing further from the person he had been, pushing himself further away from everything and everyone.

Frustrated, Vincenzo frantically cried out to the night, cursing the stars he had loved so much once upon a time.

He knew nothing anymore, this studious young man, except that he could not make the wrong choice and ruin everything like he had the last time.

His frustration was broken by the screech of a train whistle.

Making another split-second decision, Vincenzo stumbled towards the train station, finally going home. A boulder of dread began to sink in his stomach.

“ _Chi del gitano i giorni abbella? Chi del gitano_ —”

There was a knock at the door. 

Valencia stopped the record player and got up to answer it, humming the rest of the lines.

“Hello?” she asked, opening the door to see an unrecognizable man. 

There was a rough stubble on his face, and his eyes were bloodshot and desperate. He stood there, looking at Valencia, blank-faced Valencia, in awe.

“Young man? Do you need something?”

He cleared his throat. “Signora de Cicco.”

Valencia suddenly realized the identity of the man, and she felt her muscles tense. “Good evening, Vincenzo,” she muttered rather cooly.

“May I come in?”

Valencia thought for a moment, remembering that Vincenzo had gotten Cosimo arrested, but just as she was about to shut the door in his face, she remembered the nicer side of him, the one who would never do such a thing. Surely that boy couldn’t be all gone, could he? “Yes, you may.” 

With that, she led him inside, directed him to sit on the couch, and made him a cup of carcadé. The familiar feeling of the house cut through Vincenzo deeper than any knife ever could, and he found himself replaying all his memories of being in the house with Cosimo.

“How’s Roma?” he asked, trying to distract himself.

“You know that your brother left, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll be seeing him in New York soon enough.”

“Well, Roma’s upset about it. He’s been very distant lately.” Feeling her cheeks redden, Valencia added, “He misses his father. I’m sure you do too.”

Vincenzo sighed. “Signora, I’m sorry about all of that.”

Valencia sat down at the piano and seemingly did not react. Vincenzo took a breath to speak again, but before he could get any words out, the former opera singer began to play Liszt’s _Liebestraum_. 

The notes were quiet; even if she wanted to bang on the keys and kill her senses, Valencia appreciated the piece too much to do such a sacreligious thing to it.

As he listened to her, Vincenzo suddenly felt out of place and realized he had made yet another mistake coming back to Cresto D’oro. 

There was no one left there for him with Cosimo dead and Flavio across the sea, and all he had accomplished by getting on that train was making Valencia angry.

A door opened from the hallway and Luisa appeared in the living room. She had been sleeping when she heard her mother at the piano and wondered what could’ve upset her; she loved playing _Liebestraum_ when she was upset. 

As soon as she stepped out and saw Vincenzo, she knew why.

“Hello, Roma,” he greeted, barely looking at her.

Luisa was too shocked to speak. She’d heard the rumors about Vincenzo, where he’d run off to, and there he was, the man that had supposedly murdered her father. Valencia pressed the wrong key, and frustrated, she got up from the piano and left the room, cautiously looking back at Luisa and praying that nothing would happen to her.

Luisa stood in place and looked at Vincenzo the way a cobra might look at a mouse. “Aren’t you supposed to be in New York?”

“I’m not going for a few more weeks.”

“But what are you doing here?”she asked sternly.

“If only I knew.”

Luisa silently chuckled to herself, seeing that her enemy was defeated, but then she noticed the look on his face. He wasn’t just defeated; he was utterly broken.

Vincenzo looked up at her and noticed the bruise under her eye. “What happened to you?” he asked.

“What?”

“What happened to your cheek?”

“I ran into a door,” Luisa answered quickly, feeling her cheeks grow hot with shame. “What happened to _you_?”

“What do you mean?”

“You turned in my dad, and what happened then?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

The bitterness in her voice turned Vincenzo’s blood cold. “Don’t talk about it like that.”

“What do you want me to say? The fact of the matter is that you betrayed him! How could you do it? And why did we ever trust you in the first place, you _Giuda_?”

Luisa began to cry. Ever since Cosimo died, she had always wanted the chance to talk to Vincenzo and get her revenge, but now that she was, she found it to be unpleasant, revolting almost. 

She rambled on. “You were just here! You were just here, eating dinner with us! The two of you got along fine then; what the hell happened?”

Vincenzo kept his eyes on the piano and lit a cigarette. Luisa walked up to him and looked down at the top of his head, desperate for an answer.

“Well, what happened?”

Vincenzo slowly turned his face towards Luisa, and she noticed his glassy, wet eyes. “I don’t know, Roma.”

Luisa seemed to soften a little. “Did you just go and report him?”

“I was arrested. It was my life or his. I don’t know why I did it, and I feel awful about it, alright?” 

Luisa nodded, suddenly guilty for yelling at him. 

“Look. I…” Vincenzo stopped, unsure of how to begin. “I’m going to go. Have a good night, Roma.”

Luisa hesitated, confused. “Yeah. Yeah, you too.” 

Vincenzo stood up to leave, took a drag on his cigarette, and suddenly stopped. “How’s your mother taking all of this?”

Luisa sighed. “I don’t know. She’s...she’s dealing with in a way that really only makes sense to her. She seems fine, but she’s been acting a little overprotective of me, I think.”

“Does she know about me? About what I did?“ 

“She does.”

Vincenzo nodded gravely. “Have a good night.”

“You too.”

And with that, the (former) student slipped out the door. As for the decision he was trying to make, he knew what he had to do.

But he was too scared to do it right away.


	50. Cinquanta

Luisa stood in the living room for a long time, digesting Vincenzo’s words. 

It had been so long since she’d seen him; since anyone had seen him. It wasn’t hard to tell that he was a mess about the whole ordeal with her father, but she still found it hard to forgive him, and so her feelings for him were complicated.

After an hour of thinking, she went back to her bedroom. Pulling out the mirror she had stolen so long ago from Valencia, she studied the bruise on her freshly-shaven face. She’d had it since Novak shoved her into a tree for failing to see him the night before Flavio left. 

Her eyes clouded with tears as something inside of her told her she could fight back against him. Something told her she had to. But she knew she couldn’t without disastrous consequences for both of them, and so she broke down on her bedroom floor. 

That night, she went to see Novak again. She didn’t bother changing into the dress, and she felt even worse than she already did because of it.

She and Novak talked as she kept up a fake smile. They’d been getting along lately; He’d apologized for hitting her, and she hadn’t done anything to make him angry since Flavio left.

“...You know, we’ve been together for a few months now, and I think I’m ready to take things up a notch.”

Luisa looked into his eyes, frightened. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve told you before; you’re very mature for your age, and I think it’s about time you learned what it’s like to sleep with a man.”

“Well, _I’ve_ told you before; I’m not going to do it!”

“You’ll never really be a woman until you finally sleep with a man like a woman would.” Novak looked dead in her eyes. “You do know that, right?”

“You’re crazy,” she said, flabbergasted, trying to ignore how true his words sounded.

“You just have to stop worrying about it and it will be alright.”

Luisa said nothing and stared off at the thick woods, wondering. Novak took a few steps towards her and put his right hand on her face, using his left to trace the length of her arm.

Her heart beat wildly, and she suddenly realized that what Novak wanted, he would take. She stood, frozen in time, for a moment, before she began to run.

She didn’t even realize what she was doing until she felt the air on her face and heard Novak yelling. It didn’t matter. The sound of it only made her run faster, and once she had tired herself out, she crouched behind a bush, praying that he wouldn’t find her.

After an hour had passed, she stood up and looked around to find no sign that Novak had been there, nor any sign he had been near her hiding place at all. 

Shaking still, she made her way to the west and stood outside Signora Bianchi’s house, unsure of what to do. 

She considered knocking on the door and asking for Marcello, but she didn’t want to bother anyone, not to mention the fact that she’d look suspicious awake in the middle of the night.

She couldn’t go back to her house; Novak would certainly look for her there. Her mind raced with questions her heart hurt to hear. Would he hurt her mother? Would he tell her lies about what she was doing? When they saw each other again, how badly would Luisa be beaten?

She walked slowly and uncertainly into the barn and climbed up into the hayloft, where she spent the night listening to the rain and praying that nothing bad would happen.

The last thought she had before she closed her eyes was that she had left the dress at home.

It had truly been a blessing in disguise.


	51. Cinquantuno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Phonetically spelt English

The night was cold, and Flavio felt the gentle rocking of the waves beneath him. He had not been able to sleep much ever since he and his parents boarded the ship to America, though his seasickness had subsided by the third day.

He tossed and turned through the night, listening to the waves, until he finally decided to go outside of the cabin and try to get his thoughts all in one place.

He put on his jacket, though he knew it would not be enough to keep him warm, and as soon as he got outside his teeth chattered like some sort of wind-up toy. It was strange to him, to say the least. He couldn’t remember ever being so cold!

He stepped out to the railing of the ship, and looking up, he was amazed by the vast, inky sky, partially hidden in clouds and lit only by the cold light of the stars.

Not only that, but what appeared to be ashes were falling from the sky. He thought, at first, that the ship was being bombed by some country or another, but then he remembered that they had been getting near America for some time, and in America, it snowed.

Where the sky ended and the sea began was anyone’s guess, and thinking of the night at the beach with Marcello, Flavio suddenly felt inspired, childishly happy in a way.

_We’re sailing through space_ , he thought, taking note of the strange quiet of the world. _I’m the only one here, sailing through the stars, with little bits of them falling down on me, looking for Vincenzo_ …

He would have closed his eyes to picture it, but he had no need to, and he smiled. 

The Aiellos, minus Vincenzo, arrived in the home of some distant cousins in the afternoon, and, feeling unsure of what to do, exchanged some pleasantries. As soon as he had the chance, Flavio silently slipped out of the building to wander the city. He had the address of the house written down, and so, he thought naïvely, he would be able to return trouble-free if he got lost.

Again, he found himself staring up at the sky, up at the snow falling. He again felt a sort of childlike wonder, and there in the street, hearing the people passing him speak English to each other, watching the cars go by for the first time, Flavio couldn’t help but look forward to the future.

He stepped away from the wall and began walking down the sidewalks of Brooklyn, taking in everything at once and shivering in the bitter cold.

He had come from nowhere and had arrived in what had been described to him by Vincenzo, time and time again, as the greatest city in the world, the place which half of his grandfather’s family had left for, a better place than the destitute, starving south. In a similar way, Flavio thought it was a better place than the war-torn, ever-weakening Italy that had tried to convince him that this beautiful city was evil. 

That Italy, with Cresto D’oro and most of the people in it, was a place he had left behind the second he saw the snow falling that night on the ship, sailing through space with no one to berate him and nothing left to bother him.

At some point while he was walking, he stopped looking at the buildings and the lights and began to take note of the people. There were more than he had ever seen in Cresto D’oro, or even in La Spezia, and for the first time in his life, Flavio had a crowd to hide in. 

He didn’t have to feel alone, even with Marcello gone, even with Vincenzo still in Genoa.

What a wonderful feeling that was!

He walked more quickly and could hardly fathom not just how many people, but how many _types_ of people there were. He saw white people, black people, Asians, other Italians, men, women, children, teenagers, businessmen going home to their wives, young couples holding hands; the list could stretch on forever, and still Flavio would struggle to process the fact that they all lived in the same country, in the same city, even! 

It was a place Marcello would love to be, that was for certain. Flavio couldn’t wait to tell Luisa how no one seemed to care who was what color, and he smiled at the thought of Marcello listening to the news eagerly, sitting with her as she read the letter under Nostra Signora.

He smiled like an idiot as he crossed the street and was almost hit by a car, which in itself was a wonder, and instead of being frightened, he got to the other side and laughed.

It was at this point that he decided to go home, only to find that he was totally, undeniably lost. He laughed again, probably looking drunk, already picturing that smug look Vincenzo would have when he heard that the first thing his brother had done was get himself hopelessly lost in the largest city in the world.

Flavio wandered in the other direction for about an hour, frantically trying to remember which way he had come, if that street sign looked familiar, if that building was the same as the one he’d admired earlier.

The sky began to darken, and the lights began to come on in the streets and in the windows. It was strange seeing so many; the only places he had known with electricity were the de Cicco’s house and La Rosa Grigia. And even then, he hadn’t seen the lights on in either in a while, with the electricity rations and all. The cold finally got to Flavio, and he shook like a leaf as he stood by the side of the road, trying to figure out what to do.

Finally, he was approached by a woman in a grey coat. She looked friendly, and her blonde hair bounced as she walked, matching the rhythm of her clicking heels. She cleared her throat. 

“Ar iu last’a?” 

Flavio blinked, not knowing what she had said nor how to answer her, so he told her the only thing he could say from memory. “No English.”

The woman sighed and looked around. “Uat languag’?”

Flavio shrugged to try to tell her that he had no idea what she meant.

She continued, talking more to herself than Flavio. “Uat languag’ _du_ iu spicca, den? Spaniscio? No, ior tu lait tu spicca Spaniscio...butta then agaen, iu _ar_ zumuat darccar…Italian’? Ar iu Italian’?” Flavio looked puzzled, a little annoyed even, and the woman spoke again, more slowly this time around. “Italian?”

Finally, Flavio understood, and he nodded. Suddenly remembering that he had written down the house’s address, he took it out of a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to the woman.

“Ar iu traintu getta ther’?”

Still somewhat annoyed, Flavio shrugged again. 

The woman glanced down at her watch and looked back up at Flavio. “Ai hava litteltaim.” She gestured for him to follow, and he did, unsure of what else to do.

The two walked to the subway station, and the woman tried to make conversation with him along the way.

“Uatiss’ ior nem’?”

Flavio took a piece of paper out of his pocket and read over the list of essential English Vincenzo had written for him, cursing himself for not doing it earlier. She repeated the question several more times, and once he figured out what she was asking, he answered. “Flavio.”

The woman looked confused. “Aima sorri, uat?”

Flavio realized that the woman must not have understood and said it again, trying to say the full thing in English. “My name is Flavio.”

The woman laughed uncomfortably. “Peter. Ail’ calla iu Peter. My name is Mary.”

“Mary,” Flavio repeated as he descended down the subway steps. He was somewhat afraid, though he would never admit it; the idea of a train station underground seemed dangerous. What if the whole thing collapsed under the weight of the city?

Mary was silent the rest of their time together, and Flavio was too absorbed in looking out the dark window of the train to speak. When they finally arrived at the house he was staying at, she said goodbye, wishing him luck.

He waved to her, hoping she had said something nice, and went inside, climbing up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with two of his younger distant cousins.

One confusing day in New York, the rest of his life to go.


	52. Cinquantadue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Depiction of suicide

It was a strange feeling, waking up that day.

Vincenzo sat down on the bed that morning for a long time trying to write a letter to Flavio, and by the time he had, he had wasted three or four sheets of paper, each violently scribbled out in blue ink. It was not easy to explain his situation in a way that Flavio would understand, nor was it easy to tell the facts of the matter without breaking him.

But somewhere out there, Vincenzo knew, the stars would shine, if not above him. The world would go on turning the next day, no matter what happened or what he did.

Somewhere out in the world, there were happy people who still saw colors as they were and heard music as something rich and meaningful, and Flavio was one of those people.

Somehow, he would learn to get by on the other side of the ocean.

It was some comfort to Vincenzo.

The night came and brought with it the howling winds and light January rains. Vincenzo walked into a liquor store, bought a bottle of rum, and walked off to the bar he’d been playing piano in as of late, the one where he first had the impulse, the one where the music had started to fade.

It was a nicer one, right on the river, and by some miracle, it had hardly been touched by any bombs. 

Vincenzo walked in, gazing down at the river as long as he could, and walked up to the bartender, who looked up from his work and then promptly resumed it.

“Good evening,” he muttered with that certain indistinguishable old-man voice.

“Good evening, Signor,” There was an awkward silence for a moment, but Vincenzo knew he had to ask the question. “Is there any way I could get up to the roof?” 

The man looked up again, puzzled. “I’m sorry?”

“Is there a way to get to the roof?” Vincenzo repeated, hoping his plan would not be foiled.

“Why do you ask?”

Vincenzo held up the rum and gave the speech he’d rehearsed. “I got engaged this afternoon. I’ve got a bottle of rum here, and I thought it might be nice to look up at the sky and have a little drink. My friends will be joining me.”

The bartender smiled and sighed, thinking back to his wife. “Those are always happy times. You make sure no one falls off, now.”

“We won’t, sir,” Vincenzo said, trying to give a smile. “There’s one of us that doesn’t drink.”

With that, the man led him up to the roof.

Vincenzo sat there for a long time, shaking. He had to be quick; the bartender would get suspicious if he was up there too long all alone.

He was frightened something awful, and who could blame him? Looking down into the river, he saw that the man who had put the idea into his head wasn’t himself. The real Vincenzo had been left behind in Cresto D’oro, that is if he ever existed as anything more than a nowhere man.

Like Socrates drinking the hemlock, he began to force the rum, warm and sickly-sweet, down his throat.

He continued to drink, and once he began to feel light-headed, Vincenzo looked at the river once more and laughed, shocking himself. Here he was, under no one’s eyes, staring down into cold darkness, and he was laughing like a maniac, trembling like a dying man. 

He drank more from the bottle, again and again, feeling his cheeks redden and his world starting to spin. 

He stood up and muttered nonsense to the moon in some god-awful combination of English, Italian, and German, and finally, he sat on the very edge of the building, looking down into the river and laughing. 

Thinking of the rooftop back in Cresto D’oro, he took another swig from the bottle and pushed himself over, watching the world flash by him in a blur, and suddenly, like a meteor gracing the heavens for a second, Vincenzo Aiello was no more.

The boy who had always had his eyes on the night sky laid face down in the shallow river, far away from the stars.


	53. Cinquantatre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another warning: Rape/Non-Con

Novak sat on the old stump for a while, drinking from a bottle of wine he had bought, taking care not to spill any on the dress bundled in his arms.

He had chosen a nice one in La Spezia a few days prior, a white one, just like Luisa had asked. An engaged woman who would have married in the spring had discovered her fiance with another woman, and she could not bear seeing her wedding dress gathering dust in the corner of her room anymore, so she sold it for a low cost.

Novak had bought it, lying to the woman that it would perfectly suit a girl he planned to marry back in Germany.

The dress would hit a few inches below Luisa’s knees, showing her slender, pretty calves. The sleeves were puffed and short, not appropriate for a cold February night, but Novak did not doubt that she’d been warm enough in his arms. 

He saw her coming, set the bottle down, and unbundled the dress, holding it up to Luisa from a distance.

She smiled, ran up to him, and took it in her hands, feeling it. “It’s a little thin, don’t you think?”

“You have a jacket, don’t you?”

“I think if I wore it over the dress it would ruin the look.” She examined the fabric. “Is this a wedding dress? Oh, Novak, you didn’t have to.”

“Don’t worry about it, _Liebchen._ Why don’t you change into it?”

Luisa blushed. “Now?”

“When else would you do it?”

Pondering the truth of his words, Luisa took off her jacket but hesitated to start undoing the rest. 

“Well, go on.”

“Don’t look.”

“Why shouldn’t I? We’re a couple, after all.”

“Just don’t look!” she repeated sternly.

Novak grunted and covered his eyes with his hand. “There. Is this good?”

“Good enough.” Luisa began to change, and once she had, she shivered more than usual in the cold, feeling the soft fabric on her skin. “Alright, you can look now.”

Novak took away his hand, though he’d been peeking through the gaps the whole time. 

He stared at her for a moment, a wild, hungry look in his eyes.

Luisa smiled, having pleased him.

Novak walked towards her slowly, took her in his arms, and kissed her roughly. She liked it and laughed silently to herself, at least until he tried to feel her up. 

“Stop,” she said, trying to push him away. 

“You’re alright, _Liebchen_.”

Luisa felt his hand rippling the edge of her skirt and feeling her thigh. She drew in a sharp breath, pushing Novak off of her fiercely.

He stumbled backward; both of them breathed heavily for a moment before Novak, refusing to break contact with the hopeless romantic’s eyes, slowly stepped back and picked up the bottle. 

“Don’t…” Luisa began to back away, and suddenly, the sound of glass shattering broke the night. Acting on instinct, she started to run, unsure of where she was going or what she was going to do when she got to her destination.

She made it behind the church and stopped suddenly, realizing that she could go no further without running the risk of being seen in the dress. Horrified, she put her hands to her mouth and began to cry as Novak caught up behind her.

He held up a shard of the broken bottle, his eyes as hard as the glass. “If you scream, if you try to escape, if you try to get anyone’s attention, I’ll kill you.”

“Novak!”

“Is that understood?” he asked, his voice rough and wolf-like.

Luisa only cried harder, and Novak brought the glass shard close to her throat.

“Is that understood?”

She gave a small nod, and Novak brought the hand with the glass down, embraced Luisa, and stroked her hair.

The world moved slowly, feverishly. Luisa cried quietly in Novak’s arms for a long time, unsure of what to do. He ran his hands through her hair, cooing at her.

Finally, he pulled away and began to take off his shirt.

“What are you doing?”

“Luisa, I know you’re ready for this. Just shut your mouth and calm your pretty ass down, alright?”

She swallowed hard and began to unzip the dress, but Novak signaled for her to stop.

“Take everything off but the dress,” he instructed. “I think it will feel better that way.”

Luisa nodded and swallowed hard. 

When the two were finally ready, that is, once Novak got on top of her, Luisa found that she could feel nothing. She had become numb, and she stared up at him with cold, empty eyes as he began.

She suddenly cried out, surprised that it hurt. 

Novak quickly got off of her, and for a moment, he stayed on his knees. “What did I tell you about making any noise?”

“It hurts!”

“Keep your voice down and don’t do it again,” he commanded, taking the glass shard in his hand.

Luisa begged him not to hurt her, not to punish her for something that wasn’t her fault, but her plea fell on deaf ears. Novak got back on top of her, covered her mouth, and, reaching under her skirt, made a long, clean cut along Luisa’s upper thigh.

He hadn’t killed her like he said he would, though her soul and body burned. 

Somehow, she was comforted. 

Novak went on for a while, and Luisa continued to cry out from the pain. Every time she did, he kept to his word and made another cut on her thigh. 

A point came when she couldn’t take much more, that is, she felt like she was going to pass out from the pain, and she cried out again. Novak groaned in frustration, telling her what a stupid girl she was, and then cut her deeper than he had before to make sure she learned her lesson.

She screamed.

In a fit of anger, Novak brought the glass up to her face. “I’ll do it, you whore! I told you not to scream, or I’d kill you, and you didn’t fucking listen! Stupid bitch!”

She tried to back away but found herself against the stone wall. 

She could do nothing to protect herself. 

Novak slowly made a long, deep cut against her right cheek.

Luisa pressed her hand to her face and saw the red drops slip from her face onto her skirt, which at this point had been speckled with blood from her thigh.

She felt like she was being ripped to pieces.

Just then, she heard footsteps coming from the side of the church.


	54. Cinquantaquattro

Valencia woke up feeling rather calm for once, and, remembering her daughter’s habit of sneaking out, decided to see if she was still home.

Praying for the best, she lit a candle and walked down the hall. She quietly opened the door to Luisa’s bedroom. It was very late; if Luisa had snuck out, Valencia was rather certain that she would already be home. She had decided that in the morning, she was going to confront Luisa about where she’d been going once and for all.

But when Valencia looked into the dark room, she did not see any evidence that Luisa was there.

She gasped audibly, unsure of her next move, and a lump formed in her throat. She could not shake the feeling that something was happening; something bad. Luisa had been getting bruises...where had they come from? Every time Valencia asked, she would say she got into a fight at school, or she had tripped over a root...it didn’t make sense. There was something larger to Luisa’s recent behavior, something she was purposely keeping from Valencia.

Standing in the doorway, her hands began to shake, and as the feeling of dread mounted, Valencia ran to the piano, setting the candle on top of it.

She breathed hard and heavy and felt the urge to scream, but she suppressed it, pushing it down to her trembling fingers as she pressed the keys, pushing it out of her voice as she began to pray.

“ _Ave Maria, piena di grazia, il Signore e con te…_ ”


	55. Cinquantacinque

Padre Silvestro, the town priest, appeared around the corner and gasped. 

Luisa quickly pulled her skirt over her legs, kept her head down, and stayed perfectly still, her emotions a blur of fear and hope. 

“My goodness, what is going on here?”

Novak stood up, hastening to put his jacket on and zip his pants up. He briefly looked down at Luisa, and then, giving a frustrated, guttural groan, he ran off. 

The priest shook his head, muttering. “Right outside the house of the Lord…” He turned to Luisa and extended his hand, helping her up. “Are you alright?”

She shook hard, so hard that she could scarcely move, and she continued to hide her face, waiting anxiously for the moment when the truth would be revealed, when he would find out she wasn’t really a girl.

The two of them went into the church and sat in a back pew.

“Tell me what happened, Signorina.”

She was silent.

“Signorina?”

It was almost funny. For the first time in her life, someone assumed that she was who she’d always seen herself as. 

But why did it have to be then?

She looked up at the priest slowly and cautiously, wiping some blood from her cheek. 

He cleared his throat. “You’re Valencia de Cicco’s son.”

“I am,” she uttered, her voice breaking with shame.

“What are you doing dressed like this in the middle of the night? What were you doing with that man?”

She looked down and didn’t answer, tears gathering in her eyes. Padre Silvestro sighed and continued. 

“Do yourself a favor and stay away from Marcello Oliveri, you hear? I had questions about that boy from the start, and now he’s causing you to stray from the ways of the Lord.”

“Marcello?” Luisa asked. He was so far removed from her thoughts that it took her a moment to recognize the name. Blood trickled down her leg, warm and sticky. “What does Marcello have to do with any of this?”

“Just get yourself home, Roma. And if you’re going to ruin yourself, don’t do it right out where God and everyone else can see!”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Luisa yelled.

“You’re saying you didn’t choose to put on a dress? You’re saying that man came along and just started sodomizing you?”

She opened her mouth to speak but found she couldn’t think of anything to say. She suddenly realized that no matter what she said, no matter how many times she told everyone, despite the immense pain she was in, no one would think anything except that she had willfully had sex with Novak.

It was strange to her how quickly Padre Silvestro went from believing she had been raped to believing she had chosen to have sex outside of a church, and it confirmed the one thing she hated most about herself: she was seen by everyone except Novak as a boy.

Was she truly raped, then? It was a hard question for her to answer, and she didn’t have the energy to try. Confused, Luisa stood up, and after getting the clothes she could from behind the church and walked home in the dress, too shocked to care who saw her, and too scared to go back to the woods and get her other clothes.

  
  


The door opened, and Valencia immediately turned around from the piano, her eyes widening and her hands shaking again as she saw the blood and the dress.

It did not matter to her that Luisa was in a dress; the only thing that mattered to her was that she was bleeding and that she looked terribly frightened.

She ran up to her daughter and squeezed her tight. Luisa flinched upon the sudden contact. “Roma, what happened? Where were you?”

Luisa said nothing, much to her mother’s horror. If she didn’t like herself before, she hated herself now, and all she wanted to do was silently crawl out of her skin and start over in the right body, one that hadn’t been used and broken.

“Roma?” Valencia sobbed, looking at her daughter.

Luisa couldn’t bear to look in her mother’s eyes and sighed. “You’ll hear it eventually.”

With that, Luisa left to her room, leaving little red drops on the floor behind her. 

She laid on her bed for a long time, blood from her face staining the pillow until finally, she changed out of the dress and tossed it on the floor, again noticing the little pink mirror she had taken from her mother the year before.

Trembling, she picked it up and opened it, examining her face in the mirror, the way she had so many times before.

She was older now, in a way. She had lost her virginity, hadn’t she? She had always imagined that it aged a person, mentally and physically.

Yet as she pondered this, she couldn’t help but stare long and hard at the gash on her face.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.

It was supposed to be a good time, a rite of passage for her.

Novak, the one man she had trusted with her true self, wasn’t supposed to leave her bleeding against the stone.

God, what had she gotten into?


	56. Cinquantasei

**Part Eight**   
  


**February 1944**

It didn’t take long for Cresto D’oro to hear what had happened to Luisa. The way they heard it,, she was either prostituting herself or being forced to play the role of a woman by some twisted person for pleasure, although who it was was anyone’s guess.

The days passed slowly, and it was all Luisa could do to stare out the window and wait for them to end. She would hardly eat and never talk, no matter how hard her mother tried to get her to.

Speaking of Valencia, she was walking through the town square on her way to La Spezia to see if any mail had come when suddenly, she heard someone mention the name of her child. She stopped and looked over at the direction it had come from to see some of the women washing their clothes in the fountain and talking.

“Honestly, it’s a shame! He seemed alright before, and now look at him!”

“Valencia’s boy, you mean?”

“No, that gypsy that came here a few years back! He seemed like a nice boy at first; What got into him that made him do all of this?”

Valencia walked up to the women, figuring she ought to be involved in a conversation about her child, especially since Luisa refused to talk about what had happened.

The women looked up at her, surprised.

“Careful, dear, it’s wet.”

Valencia stepped aside to avoid a puddle and began to speak to the women. “What were you saying about my son?”

They were silent except for Fabiola Bruzzone, the most blunt of them. “Well, I’m sure you know that he slept with Marcello Oliveri by now. Seems these days that every boy in town has.”

Valencia’s brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Slept with him?”

“Yes, Valencia. They had sex with each other, if you could call it that.”

“No,” a woman interjected. “He _forced_ him to do it. In a dress, can you believe that?”

“Forced him?” Valencia asked, startled. “Are you saying that Roma was raped?”

Even Fabiola was shocked by the bluntness and hostility with which she asked the question, and she cleared her throat and tried to regain her composure. “Don’t go calling it that, dear. You’d better watch your boy; they say that he liked it.”

Valencia gasped, thoroughly dumbfounded.

“You don’t think it can spread, can it?” a woman asked. 

“Of course it can, Raphaela! It’s a disease of the mind, but a disease no less. Roma must’ve caught it; that’s why he didn’t try to fight!”

“Or maybe that gypsy hypnotized him…”

“He got cut in the face,” Valencia interrupted sternly. The women looked up at her. “He got cut in the face, and he came home bleeding. He’s been a wreck since, and you have the nerve to say that he _liked_ it?”

She shook her head, her face growing hot. “I consider myself a good Catholic woman, but my God, if I weren’t, I’d give you hell for that!”

The women were silent, and Valencia stormed off on her way, her heart heavy with a newfound knowledge of what had happened.

Her child, her flesh and blood, whose eyes were a mirror into her lost husband, destroyed.

Rape, _Stupro_. The word itself was an ugly thing, and she could only imagine how ugly it must be for someone to live through it, for Luisa to live through it.

She walked quickly through town with her arms folded, running her fingers along her coat sleeve. It was at this moment that she thought back to Cosimo, out of all people.

What a time it was when they were young! A bright Sicilian philosopher courting an opera-singer born to a wealthy family in Genoa, never daring to imagine anything but a happy future for themselves. 

Looking back then, Valencia almost laughed at their childish fantasies. If only they knew the fate that was to become them.

She remembered a rainy October evening in 1926, when she and Cosimo had gone to a bar following a performance of _Il Trovatore_. There wasn’t much Valencia remembered, actually, just that she felt awfully sick that night and that she vaguely remembered Cosimo fighting a man outside the bar. 

The next morning, she had woken up on the sofa in her house, where her mother explained to her that her drink had been spiked and that Cosimo had brought her home.

She had cried and shook when she heard, totally inconsolable. Thankfully, the man did not do anything to her, but the thought that it could have happened was enough to scare Valencia half to death.

But Luisa...it had happened to her, and she was hurt terribly because no one was there to protect her.

She couldn’t even get any sympathy, for God’s sake!

Valencia desperately wanted to help her, but every time she thought of Luisa’s bleeding face, she was utterly lost.

Cosimo would have known what to do, Valencia was certain of it.

But at that point, both him and Luisa were gone.


	57. Cinquantasette

Marcello smirked as Agnese tried to stifle her laughter. “I told you that I was a bad singer, didn’t I?”

“Oh, you were just fine!”

“Did you hear that voice crack?”

Agnese covered her mouth with her hand and laughed again. Marcello was about to start another song when there was a knock at the door.

They both looked over.

“I’ll get it,” Marcello said, setting down his mandolin. 

He went to the door and opened it, expecting to see one of the other Sinti townsfolk asking to borrow something, but instead, when he opened the door, he saw a pale, glassy-eyed Valencia.

“Hello, Signora de Cicco. Is everything alright?”

“You didn’t do it,” Valencia uttered. “You couldn’t have.”

Marcello’s brow furrowed. “What?”

Valencia said nothing.

“Why don’t you come inside?”

Valencia nodded and stepped inside slowly and gently. Marcello put more wood in the stove and sat at the table with her, offering her some hibiscus tea, which she refused. Agnese sensed that something serious had happened, and being the lighthearted person she was, she went upstairs to avoid it.

“Is Roma alright?”

“No, not at all! Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?” Marcello asked, his heart dropping.

Valencia rattled her fingers on the table. “They’re saying he got raped, or something like that.”

Marcello stood up suddenly, his eyes wide. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say, so he shook his head, wondering how he had let it happen.

“The women say that you did it, but I just can’t believe them. You would never, even with all the trouble you’ve gotten in.”

“I wouldn’t, especially not with Roma. Was he hurt badly?” Marcello asked, remembering the night when Novak had beat her in the woods.

“He got cut in the face, and there was blood on the dress.”

“Dress?” Marcello asked. “What about a dress?”

“He came home wearing a dress; God knows why! It was a pretty white one, a wedding dress, I think, but there was blood all over the skirt.”

Valencia rambled on about how horrible it was, beginning to cry, while Marcello stood motionless, dazed. He had known that something awful would happen between Novak and Luisa. He could have convinced her not to see him, and she would have been alright.

Why didn’t he try harder?

Why didn’t she listen?

“How long ago was this?” he finally asked, interrupting Valencia.

“It was Sunday night.”

“And how’s he been since then?”

“He won’t talk at all, Marcello. He’s hardly eating, and all he ever does is stare out his bedroom window and draw.”

“And they’re saying I did it?” Marcello asked, his voice scratchy.

Valencia nodded wordlessly.

Marcello sighed and looked into the fire through the slits on the stove door. “I’ll talk to him sooner or later. I’m so sorry, Signora de Cicco.”

“There was nothing you could have done. There was nothing any of us could have done.”

Marcello avoided saying that it wasn’t true and focused on the flames, wishing he could burn away the past year and start over, wishing that he, Luisa, Flavio, Vincenzo, everyone, could forget about everything that had happened and rise from the ashes of 1943.

He wondered vaguely if that they ever would, and reasoned out that surely they must at some point or another. Despite the wars, the famines, the plagues, the massacres, the world had always gone on turning like the waves crashing upon the shore, in some way or another.

Marcello suddenly realized that that was why he was so comforted by the sea. He could stare into the dark water, remembering his father’s lifeless eyes, and the water would suddenly hit his feet, and he would jump. He could stand and remember the fire in Genoa’s sky, those who didn’t make it to the shelter in time, and still, the waves would roll in and out through the night, the way they always did.

Things were going to get better in time.

He knew Luisa needed someone to let her know that.


	58. Cinquantotto

Flavio had been in New York for two weeks, and Vincenzo was still nowhere to be found. He was worrying himself sick, and he hated himself for it. After all, Vincenzo had come home from La Spezia, and the two of them had laid on the rooftop and looked at the stars. The same thing would happen, surely it must, and yet he couldn’t shake the awful feeling that Vincenzo would abandon him again.

He had initially been awestruck by the city, but after a few days, Flavio found himself feeling lonely in a city of seven million people. At the time this chapter begins, it was evening. His parents were fighting in the guest bedroom and Flavio was laying on the living room couch, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

Light glared at him through the window. He found it grotesque and unnatural after living in Cresto D’oro all his life, where only the light of the moon had shone onto him as he fell asleep to the soft sound of Vincenzo’s breathing.

He had tried to start school a few days before, though because he knew no English, it was safe to say that the day had been a thoroughly confusing mess for all involved. After three years of seeing Marcello getting tormented by the other boys in Cresto D’oro, it did not take Flavio long to figure out that the kids at his new school were laughing at him once they found out that he could hardly answer anything that was said to him.

He walked to the window, trying to look for some small glimmer of a star in the sky, some comfort, but the city itself gave off a strange white glow as if to say that it was bigger, brighter, better than a measly little star a million miles away.

The stars, it seemed, wouldn’t show until Vincenzo did.

Flavio sighed and returned to the couch, disappointed.


	59. Cinquantanove

Under the light of the setting sun, Marcello was on the hill, standing under Nostra Signora, ready to do the one thing he’d always been afraid to do.

He hadn’t been able to see Luisa, as she had stubbornly refused visitors, and Valencia did not want to go against her wishes and upset her, so Marcello had returned home thinking that it gave him more time to prepare what he would say to her.

He set his journal in the grass, took a breath, and rolled up his sleeves. Standing up, he shakily put one foot and then the other into the tree’s lowest hanging branch. 

He stood there for a while, looking down at his feet, worrying that he would fall if he tried to sit in the tree the way Flavio had.

Mustering his courage, he sat down, and was amazed at the sight of the whole town laid before him. 

Smiling, he put his hands in the air and yelled, “I’m not a coward anymore!”

He felt ridiculous for doing it, and he started laughing, thinking of Flavio and taking in the tranquility of the sight before him.

Then he heard Agnese call his name.

Embarrassed that she may have heard him yelling, he turned to the trunk of the tree, promised himself to come back, and jumped down, landing hard on his feet. 

He took his journal and began to climb down the hill, and he eventually met Agnese outside of the house. 

“Is everything alright?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to want to see this,” she said gravely.

Marcello’s brow furrowed, and she handed him a newspaper, which he began to read.

BOY FOUND DEAD IN POLCEVERA

On the night of the 28th, a young man came to The Sleeping Marigold Bar in the San Teodoro region of Genoa. Later that night, his body was found face down in the river.

According to Mario Ferrando, the owner of the bar, the man’s name was Vincenzo Aiello, and he had been playing piano in the bar for a while.

On that night, Mr. Ferrando says that Mr. Aiello asked to go to the roof. “He said he had gotten engaged, and that he was going to go to the roof and drink with his friends to celebrate.”

But Mr. Aiello’s friends did not arrive at the bar. About half an hour after Mr. Ferrando led him to the roof, he became suspicious. He went up to the roof, only to find that Mr. Aiello was no longer there. 

“I called the police,” Mr. Ferrando said. “There was no doubt he had fallen.”

The police arrived not long after, and Mr. Aiello’s body was found face down in the river next to a broken glass bottle. Police say he died from the fall, but they are still unsure whether his death was an accident or a suicide.

Acquaintances of Mr. Aiello said that he was a quiet man, and no one knew much about him. His landlord said that he had come to Genoa from La Spezia in November, and a search of his apartment revealed many unsent letters to Mr. Flavio Aiello, presumably a relative of his.

If you have any information on Mr. Aiello’s death, please contact Officer Giacomo Costa at 536 Via della Quercia. 

Marcello stared at the paper blankly for a few moments before looking up at Agnese, who began to share her thoughts on the matter, hardly stopping to breath.

“Awful, isn’t it? I mean, I can’t even imagine that! Do you think he killed himself? I think he must have. If he was engaged, his family would know by now, and he turned in Roma de Cicco’s father. He must have felt bad about it. I know I would. But what do you think?”

Marcello handed the paper back to her, his hands shaking. “I-I don’t know…” 

His vision blurred as he thought of sitting by his father’s bed, listening to his delirious fever ramblings. He thought of his mother crumpled on the ground after he had died, her black hair unkempt. 

He thought of Vincenzo in the water, the dark water...he thought of the waves on the beach...of Flavio on the other side of the world, hearing the news...


	60. Sessanta

It was around four o’clock by the time Flavio got the letter, and he sat on the couch to read it, finally ready to see what had kept Vincenzo from coming.

He turned on the lamp; a strange thing, frightening almost, and opened the letter with a knife, though he really could have done without it. He unfolded the paper and began to read what Vincenzo had written.

_28 January, 1944_

_Flavio,_

_I’m sitting here on the bed and writing this, and I don’t know what to say. There’s no fixing any of what I’m about to do, and I worry that it’s never going to make sense to you._

_I’ve been getting worse every day, and these thoughts have been gnawing at my soul. I’m terrified. Hell, I’m shaking just writing this! I don’t know if anything is ever going to fix me, Flavio. I’ve tried to be happy, really, I have; I’ve tried to tell myself that I’m alright, but the fact is, I’m living in hell._

_I hate myself for it. I hate that I have to leave you in New York, but I can’t take anymore of this, Flavio. Please try to understand that I don’t mean to hurt you, and I can’t even say how sorry I am about all of this._

_Tonight, when the stars are out, I’m going to go to the roof of a bar on the river, I’m going to get drunk, and I’m going to fall off and not feel anything. By the time you read this, I’ll be dead._

_Keep the poetry book for me. There’s a lot you can learn from it, things I can teach you even if I’m not here. Please don’t let yourself get so upset over me that you end up becoming like I was. Everyone but you is going to forget about me, but I need you to know that that’s okay; I don’t want to remember myself either._

_New York is a fine city, and I think you’ll like it very much. Stay there and make a name for yourself, even if I can’t. Do yourself a favor and get yourself far away from our parents, since I can’t come and do it myself. You are so much more than they think you are, and I’ll never know why they thought I of all people was the better son._

_You are the only one of us I ever cared about._

_I love you, and again, I’m so sorry._

_Vincenzo Aiello_

Flavio stared at the paper, unsure of what to do. It couldn’t be right; Vincenzo wasn’t going to jump off of a roof. He was too practical, too serious, he would never let himself, right?

Right?

Flavio read it again, certain he’d find some error that changed the meaning of it all.

He read it again.

He read it again.

He read it again, desperately hoping that something had gone wrong, that Vincenzo had lived, or that he was lying to begin with. 

Finally, he sat back and realized that it had happened, that his brother’s guilt had killed him, and that as he sat safe in New York, Vincenzo was lying dead in the river. 

Slowly, he stood up, folded the note into his pocket, and walked to the wall, where a picture of his brother hung. His parents had put it up just a few days ago, hoping it could somehow get their minds off of the fact that Flavio was the only one there. 

He looked at it for a long time, unmoving, unsure what to make of anything, and the weight of the situation tore through him.

There would be no more pictures of Vincenzo. 

There would be no more letters back and forth. He would never get to come to New York the way he had always dreamed, and Flavio was going to have to stay in that overcrowded house with his parents, for far longer than he had ever wanted.

He couldn’t take another day with his father beating him. He couldn’t take another day with his mother berating him. 

He had to leave.

Suddenly wild, Flavio got The Best Loved Poems of the American People from off the kitchen table and ran out of the house, stumbling like a drunk rabbit in the fresh snow and listening as one of his distant relatives yelled after him.

He didn’t know where he was going, or what he was doing, but he had begun to cry, he was shaking, and he was sure he’d get hit by a car at some point or another. Maybe it would wake him up from whatever fever dream he was in.

He ran around the city for hours like a madman, the stars turning above him, though they could not be seen. How funny was it that Vincenzo, the one who had pointed out those stupid things to Flavio in the first place, was dead, and yet they still turned?

It was the way of things, no matter how twisted it seemed. 

It sickened Flavio.

Several hours later, he was still wandering the streets, his tears all cried out, when suddenly he saw a burning flash of red in a store window next to him.

He turned around, caught off guard.

Poppies. 

There were poppies in the window.

He stumbled backwards and opened the book, flipping the pages frantically with his freezing hands until he found what he was looking for.

He whispered the words as best he could, tears mounting in his eyes again.

“ _In Flanders fields the poppies blow_

_Between the crosses, row on row,_

_That mark our place; and in the sky_

_The larks, still bravely singing, fly_

_Scarce heard amid the guns below._

_We are the Dead. Short days ago_

_We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,_

_Loved and were loved, and now we lie,_

_In Flanders fields._

_Take up our quarrel with the foe:_

_To you from failing hands we throw_

_The torch; be yours to hold it high._

_If ye break faith with us who die_

_We shall not sleep, though poppies grow_

_In Flanders fields_ …”

He stood there for a long time with the open book, the snow coming down on his hair in little crystals. Finally, he went into the shop, where an old woman sat behind the counter. It was a flower shop; that much was clear by the colors and petals all around him. The woman behind the counter muttered a greeting, but Flavio didn’t look at her, and he didn’t speak, just looked around with wild eyes.

Shaking, he walked up to the display in the window, took the bouquet of poppies, and ran out of the store as fast as he had come, hearing the woman behind the counter yell at him.

Again, he ran for a long time. High on adrenaline and God knows what else. When he finally could not go any further, he collapsed on a nearby bench, holding the poppies close to him and finally giving himself a moment to think.

He was in a city he didn’t know. He didn’t speak English, he had no idea of knowing where he was, and there would be no nice woman to help him this time. 

He wondered bitterly why he should care. What would it matter if he froze to death? He had lost Vincenzo, he had lost Marcello, what was left to lose? 

Marcello. The thought of him was painful at that moment, though Flavio couldn’t tell why. Perhaps it was how familiar he was, how Flavio had been able to look at him and tell rather well who it was that he was looking at.

Green eyes, warm skin. He had come in the dead of the night, a stranger to everyone; The gypsy, the outcast, the scapegoat, the city-boy. 

He would be somewhat at home in New York, after living in Genoa for so long. If he were there, he would sit on the bench and warn Flavio how unpredictable life really was, but also how it would still go on, and the two would lean against each somewhere no one could see and listen to the other’s silence.

Flavio stood up suddenly and looked up at the sky, moonless and unending. Whether it was because of the pollution, the clouds, or his blurred vision, he didn’t know.

He began to walk, slower this time, more sure of himself. He didn’t know where he was supposed to go to find what he was looking for, but it couldn’t be too hard. 

He had become somewhat numb to the cold by then, or at least, his hands had. He wondered vaguely if they would have to be cut off, but then, hearing a soft crashing sound, Flavio stopped where he was.

He was close. 

He followed the sound, and when he was able to see the sand on the beach and the abandoned boardwalk, he nearly tripped over his own feet.

He walked close to the ocean, rolling in and out, and saw nothing, absolutely nothing in front of him. This was what Marcello had meant that night in La Spezia, Flavio began to realize. This is what had helped him all those years ago.

The ocean was a blank slate, just like the night, the hours where no one seemed to exist, where Flavio could lay on the rooftop or sail through space, alone but not lonely.

The world really was a softer place there, and for a moment, Flavio forgot all about the city lights behind him, the suicide note in his pocket. The world was broken, and Flavio’s was just about beyond repair at that point, but he was in a new place, one where anything he had done in Italy, any of the mistakes he had made, remained hidden. 

No one knew that he had been caught in the hayloft with Marcello.

No one knew that he had watched his brother go crazy and did nothing about it.

For the first time in his life, he was given the chance to start over.

Tracing his fingers over the petals of the poppies, he realized that they were artificial. He laughed slightly and wondered why it hadn’t dawned on him before; why would poppies even be available in the dead of winter? 

It didn’t matter. 

Rising again from his ashes, Flavio threw them into the water, hoping they would make it to Vincenzo on the other side.


	61. Sessantuno

Marcello walked up to the door, finding it to be a rather strange thing at the moment. He had been to that house, knocked on that very door, so many times, and yet he felt as though he had never seen it before; it was as if he was knocking for the first time.

Valencia opened it and looked down, both surprised and relieved to see him.

“Hello, Signora de Cicco. Is Roma home?”

“He always is,” Valencia said sadly. “He’s in his room, but I still don’t think he’s going to let you see him.”

“I guess I should be going, then?” Marcello asked, a little frustrated and worried. What if Luisa never let him in? What if he never got to talk to her again, and she would just slowly waste away in that house?

Valencia wrung her hands. “No, please stay. He’s had his time to think this over, and now I think he needs to talk to someone.” 

Marcello turned. “Very well, then.”

Valencia led the boy inside, walking quietly down the hall, and once he was at Luisa’s door, she left him to his own devices and returned to the piano, where she played a soft tune and wondered what would come of the two finally talking.

Taking a breath, Marcello opened the door. Immediately he noticed the dress on the floor, which had been there since the night of the rape and was still dotted with dried blood on the upper half of the skirt. Averting his eyes from the thing, Marcello saw Luisa sitting on her bed, staring out the window. 

He cleared his throat. “Hello, Roma.”

Luisa turned and blinked at Marcello, not fully realizing what was happening. “Hello.”

Her dead-looking eyes and meek voice tore at Marcello’s heart. He had always known Luisa as the most confident of his friends, the most reckless and chaotic. Her voice used to be loud. Her eyes used to sparkle. She used to laugh.

She turned back to the window. Marcello sighed and walked up to the bed, looking at her for a minute or two as she studied the rain. She was never able to stay cooped up inside all day; like Flavio, she had to do something, cause some mischief. She liked to take time for herself and didn’t mind staying inside all day drawing or reading every once in a blue moon, but doing so for days on end certainly wasn’t like her.

If it weren’t for the bloody dress on the floor, and if Valencia had not told him about the rape, Marcello might have assumed that the girl at the window was from some parallel universe, or that Luisa had been possessed by a very passive and mild-mannered demon.

“Come on,” Marcello ordered suddenly, standing up. 

Luisa turned, confused. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to get on the train, and I think it would be good if you came with me.”

“I can’t go out there,” she whispered, suddenly coming back to reality. “God knows what people would say.”

“We’re going to get away from here. Nobody will know us, and by the time we come back, nobody here will be out to say anything. What do you say?”

Luisa was tempted by the offer. She had avoided leaving her house to not be faced with the ridicule of the town, and becoming a stranger in some new place had become her dream. Hesitantly, she stood up.

“I think…” she trailed off, looking at the dress for a fleeting second. “I’d like that.”

Marcello smiled.

“Then let’s go.”

The two left the room and walked down the hall, making their way to the living room. 

"Signora de Cicco?” Marcello asked, hating to bother her.

Valencia turned around, still half-reaching for the keys. She noticed Luisa and her eyes widened in shock, though she was thankful for whatever Marcello said to get her out. “What is it?”

“Roma and I are going to go. We’ll be back in a few hours.”

Valencia wrung her hands anxiously and took a breath. “Where are you going? Is he going to be alright?”

“Down to La Spezia. I have some money for tickets, and I can assure you that nothing bad will happen to either of us.”

Valencia nodded and walked up to Luisa, putting her hand to the cut on her face and holding back tears. It was healing, but it would leave a nasty scar. Luisa had steadfastly refused to have it bandaged, despite her mother’s insistence, and Valencia worried endlessly that the wound would become infected.

She hugged her daughter tight. “Take care, won’t you?”

Luisa nodded wordlessly.

Marcello stared down at the carpet, feeling somewhat out of place.

Valencia let go, and resisting the urge to stop the two, she watched them as they left, a tear falling down her cheek. She put both hands on her shoulders, squeezing them tight, and could almost imagine Cosimo behind her. 

Luisa had been through hell and back; there was no doubt about it. But on that October evening when Valencia’s drink was spiked, she had had Cosimo. In a similar way, Luisa had Marcello.

Valencia could not be more grateful to that boy, nor could she begin to express the intense love she had for her daughter.

Taking a breath, she crept into Luisa’s room, gently picked the dress from off the floor, and went out to the fountain to wash it.

Marcello and Luisa walked to Lontano Collina in silence. It was raining, and in the darkness, the clouds covered the sky like a grey woolen blanket, creating a calm atmosphere.

Luisa allowed the cold raindrops to slip down her face without the slightest hint of frustration. It felt clean, refreshing, or at least, better than fresh blood.

Marcello watched her as they went, admiring her pale face and trying not to notice the cut.

When they finally arrived at the station, Marcello purchased tickets for both of them, much to the suspicion of the man behind the counter, but they were allowed onto the train, and soon enough it began to screech down the tracks towards where they stood.

They got on and wordlessly sat down.

Again, Luisa stared out the window, though her eyes began to show traces of the life they had once had.

The train screamed as it began to move. Marcello cleared his throat and began to speak, looking down at the ground.

“I remember that it was night when I came here.” 

Luisa didn’t speak for a long time, and Marcello was worried that she didn’t want anything to do with him or his conversation. 

Just when all hope seemed lost, Luisa looked over to him. “Go on,” she finally whispered, much to Marcello’s relief.

He cleared his throat and noticed that Luisa did not turn back to the window, but instead looked at him as he spoke, interested in hearing the story. “It was night, and I had fallen asleep on the train when we left Genoa. When I woke up, we were in La Spezia.”

“Was it frightening?” Luisa asked quietly.

“A little. I felt like I didn’t get the chance to give it a proper goodbye, and I was worried that a bomb might hit and kill everyone I knew while we were gone.”

“What was it like there?”

“In Genoa?”

“Yes.”

Marcello shifted in his seat. “Well, I’ve told you before, I lived somewhat on the outskirts, in Marassi, but I guess you don’t know where that is. There were a bunch of other Sinti there, and we all sort of just kept to ourselves, so in the beginning, it was kind of jarring for me to come here and suddenly be so Italian.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Yeah. I miss my friends there. One of our fathers ran a corner store, and we all used to get together outside of it and just shoot at the breeze...” Marcello was silent a minute, and worried Luisa would turn back to the window, he continued. “But I have you now, and for the longest time, I had Flavio. I couldn’t be more grateful for that, no matter what it gets me into.”

Luisa looked at him, surprised to hear him speak of her so highly. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came, so she turned back to the window and blushed.

Marcello did not speak again, knowing that Luisa did not need him to.

Time passed, and the train screeched to a halt. Marcello and Luisa were among the last passengers to get off, and they walked out of the station quickly and quietly.

Luisa followed Macello, unsure where he was taking her, and, to be quite honest, she was frightened. She didn’t know who she could trust anymore, and she had the slightest fear that Marcello might take her into some alleyway and use her like Novak had; that he might’ve seen her as an easy target.

This only heightened when he suddenly stopped outside a church they were passing.

She began to shake, remembering the disapproving priest, the glass against her skin, Novak’s jagged breathing. Luisa breathed hard and heavy and turned to Marcello, worrying he would have some devilish smirk, but she found that his face was stoic as he looked at the church door, his brow furrowed seriously.

"Are you alright?” Luisa asked.

“It’s...” he sighed. “I just...the last time I was here…” He shook his head and didn’t finish his sentence, pulling open the doors and walking in.

“What are we doing here?” Luisa whispered anxiously, following him.

“I don’t know. It’s no secret that things are really bad right now, and since we walked by a church, I thought that we ought to go inside and pray for them to get better.”

“What good will that do?” 

Marcello was taken aback, and it took him a moment to think of something to say. “Why don’t we just stay here for a while, then? We can sit here, in the quiet, and we can think.”

“About what?” Luisa asked, realizing she was no longer afraid, but frustrated that Marcello wanted to be quiet for even longer.

“Anything. We can just be alone with our thoughts.”

“I’ve been doing that every day; for God’s sake, don’t make me do it anymore!”

“What would you rather do, then?”

“I don’t know! You’re the one who brought me here!”

Marcello sighed and looked around the church. “I have an idea. Come on, Roma.” 

He turned to leave. Luisa felt her face grow hot.

“Don’t call me Roma,” she said, the words slipping out of her lips before she had the chance to stop herself.

Marcello turned back around, genuinely confused. “Why not?”

She grunted, didn’t answer, and wordlessly left the church. 

The two walked for a while until eventually, Marcello led Luisa to the ocean. He walked to the edge of the water and gestured for Luisa to join him. She did, clutching her jacket closer to her.

“Take off your socks and shoes,” he said.

Luisa didn’t know why he was suggesting such a thing and sternly refused to do it. 

Marcello simply shrugged in reply, saying “Suit yourself, then.” With that, he removed his own socks and shoes and stood barefoot in the ocean in the dead of winter, making Luisa question his sanity.

“Anything on your mind, Roma?” he asked calmly.

She felt her face grow hot again, and mustering up her courage, she muttered, “Luisa.”

“Who’s that?”

“Nevermind,” she sighed, wishing she hadn’t opened her mouth in the first place.

“Are you sure?”

She groaned, frustrated. “Just don’t call me Roma, call me Luisa. I’m not going to get into telling you why now, cause it would take way too long, but it would make me feel a lot better if you did, okay?”

Marcello nodded, confused, but willing to do whatever it took to help carry the weight his friend was being crushed by. “I can do that, and you can tell me why whenever you’re ready, whether that’s now or…” He paused, gesturing up with his hand. “Fifty years from now.”

There was a long silence, and Marcello realized that Luisa wasn’t going to tell him at that moment. He thought long and hard about what she must have been going through lately, and the claws of guilt tore at his heart as he remembered that he could have prevented it all.

“I’m so sorry, Ro…” He trailed off, remembering what she had said. “Luisa. I feel awful about all of this.”

“About what?” she asked, hoping he wouldn’t say the obvious.

“About what happened to you!”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “You didn’t do anything.”

Marcello turned to her. “But I could have stopped it! I saw him hit you, and I knew something worse would happen, and I did nothing!.”

“What good would it have done? He would have killed you if you tried anything, and he probably would have thrown me in for good measure! What happened to me happened, and now we can’t do anything to change it, okay?”

“Did you love him?”

Luisa inhaled quickly, the question hitting her like an unexpected punch to the gut, then blinked back tears. “I don’t know anymore. I think I did.” She paused. “I must have had to since I...I just don’t know…”

“He was awful to you, though.”

“Don’t say that,” she scolded, closing her eyes. “I was the one who made him mad.”

“No, he was just plain awful! He got mad at you over stupid things, and he decided that the best way to deal with that was to beat you. You didn’t do anything, believe me.”

Luisa began to cry, and she hated herself for it. 

Marcello hesitated, trying to figure out how to best comfort her, and finally, he awkwardly put his arms around her.

“Don’t,” she said, pushing him away sternly. “Someone will see us, and everything that happened with you and Flavio is going to happen all over again!”

Marcello thought of the fight in the schoolyard before his wedding, how the boys would have killed him if Flavio hadn’t stopped them. He shook his head. “That doesn’t bother me anymore. People have done their worst already, and I’m still here. You heard about the fight in the schoolyard, right? One of them had a knife, Luisa. If God decided I could live through that, then it’s all over; I guess He changed his mind about striking down guys like us, and now I’m prepared for whatever else might come of everyone knowing.”

“I don’t know if that’s right,” Luisa admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“You must’ve lived by pure chance. This can’t be a good thing if they tried to kill you, and certainly not if it made Novak…” she cleared her throat. “I mean, there’s a reason people don’t talk about it, isn’t there? There’s a reason it doesn’t happen, and I’m the proof of it!”

Marcello nodded solemnly and looked into the endless dark sea, trying to think of something to say. “Here’s what I think, Luisa. That guy didn’t love you, and the two of you being the way you are had nothing to do with what he did. It could have happened in a normal relationship, it could have happened in yours. 

What I mean is this: when you find someone that loves you, someone who’s good to you and would give everything to protect you, regardless of how dark you are, or what language you speak, or whether you’re a boy or a girl, it’s impossible to believe people when they say you two are in the wrong for it.” He paused, turning and taking ahold of his friend’s hand. “One day, Luisa, and I swear we’ll see it, you’re going to find someone who loves you enough for what I’m saying to make sense.”

“Look at me! Look at my face! No one is going to want me; not after I’ve already been used and thrown away!”

“Hey,” Marcello said, his brow furrowing. “That’s not true in the slightest. I know that it must be impossible to feel otherwise with everything that’s going on, but you _are_ wonderful, Luisa.” He hesitated. “I think you are, anyway, and I just...I don’t know why anyone would do something so awful to you and not want themself dead.”

There was another pause, and he continued, turning to look into Luisa’s eyes, her glistening eyes. “And you know what? Even when it feels like the whole world has gone against us, which at this point it might have, we’re always going to have each other, and I could never ask for more.” 

He felt tears form, and though he tried to blink them away, several rolled down his cheek as a sudden tenderness for his friend formed in his heart. “I can hardly say how glad I am to have you!”

He put his arms around Luisa again, who flinched, and then returned the gesture, beginning to cry as well. 

How amazing it was to her, to both of them, that the world would go on turning, laughing at them and aiming knives at their throats all the way, and yet no matter what, they would always be able to have moments like that one; happy moments where they stood on the beach and talked about all the things they could never tell anyone else.

Luisa de Cicco knew at that moment that Marcello cared about her, loved her, for being his friend, and that nothing that she ever did, no change in name or smear on her reputation, would change that.

Although the two of them had a long and difficult road ahead of them, it was a road they would walk together.

She smiled in spite of herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is folks. If you made it this far, congratulations, you've received the MonaLuisa award for dedication. As always, let me know what you thought (or don't, I don't care) and I sincerely thank everyone who's made it this far. Y'all are the reason I do this.


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